USTFCCCA News & Notes
CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY: How Historic Would an Oregon 1-2-3 5000m Finish Be?
By Kyle Terwillegar, USTFCCCA June 3, 2015   

CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY: How Historic Would an Oregon 1-2-3 5000m Finish Be?

This is the first in a series of posts based on the USTFCCCA’s newly unveiled NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships History page – the most comprehensive collection of the meet’s history anywhere on the web – leading up to the 2015 edition June 10-13 in Eugene, Oregon. The page can be viewed in its entirety here.

 

NEW ORLEANS – Earlier this week, we took you “inside the numbers” for the entries into the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, breaking down most entries by team and those athletes doubling and tripling in individual events.

We saw that:

  • Oregon will have four men contending for points at 5000 meters
    (Fri, June 12 at 9:30pm ET on ESPN)

  • Oregon will have four women in the 1500
    (FINAL: Sat, June 13 at 5:15pm ET on ESPN2 | SEMIS: Thu, June 11 at 7:14pm ET on ESPNU)

  • Southern California will send four women to compete for the 100 meters crown
    (FINAL: Sat, June 13 at 5:55pm ET on ESPN | SEMIS: Thu, June 11 at 8:16pm ET on ESPNU).

Oregon’s crew of Edward Cheserek, Eric Jenkins and Will Geoghegan (as well as Jake Leingang) in the 5k is particularly noteworthy, as the trio went 1-2-3 this past winter in the 3000 at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Both Jenkins and Cheserek own indoor 5000-meter titles, (and were part of a 2-3-4 at this meet at 5000 meters a year ago) but both will be looking for their first outdoor title.

Additionally, there will be 13 more instances of teams with three athletes in a single event.

Keep an eye on that women’s 100, because not only does Southern Cal have four in the race, but Texas A&M also has three of their own. The Aggies’ three are all seeded in the top seven, while Southern Cal will be looking to pull the upset with theirs seeded eighth and lower.

That total of 13 also includes the men’s decathlon with both Oregon and Georgia sending three apiece, and the women’s high jump with both Georgia and Kansas State qualifying trios.

Let’s dig a bit further into the past, shall we?

 

Using the USTFCCCA’s new NCAA Division I Championships History Record Book, we can compare how those numbers could potentially stack up to the most dominant single-event performances by teams at past championships.

None can match the five scorers posted by BYU in the decathlon in 1975, which is the only instance in meet history a team has taken five of the top eight spots. Led by champ Raimo Pihl and third-place Christer Lythell, the Cougars scored the equivalent of 25 points using today’s scoring system (the current scoring system was introduced in 1985).

Twenty-five points is impressive, but it’s not quite as impressive as 28. That’s the record (after converting to today’s scoring system) held by the 1981 UTEP men’s 10,000 meters foursome of champ Suleiman Nyambui, runner-up Mike Musyoki, third-place Matthews Motshwarateu and fifth-place Gidamis Shahanga.

That was nearly topped three years later in 1984 as Florida State’s women scored a whopping 27 points (converted to today’s system) at 200 meters. FSU swept the podium behind winner Randy Givens, runner-up Brenda Cliette and third-place Marita Payne, and got a sixth-place finish from Janet Davis.

Oregon’s 5000-meter men and 1500-meter women, and Southern Cal’s 100-meter women will look to join a club of 12 teams that have put at least four finishers in the top eight places (seven times for the men, five for the women).

As mentioned before, Oregon’s men are also going for another 1-2-3 sweep at 5000 meters to match their indoor feat at 3000 meters.

Only 11 times has that happened at the outdoor NCAA Championships (six times for the men, five times for the women), most recently in 2010 by – you guessed it – Oregon’s men at 1500 meters. Andrew Wheating, A.J. Acosta and Matthew Centrowitz went 1-2-3 in that order for the Ducks.

Should the 2015 Ducks go 1-2-3 in the 5k, they’d become just the second team in meet history to do so over that distance. It’s been nearly 40 years since the only time it’s been done, when Washington State’s trio of Josh Kimeto, John Ngeno and Samson Kimobwa swept the top of the podium in 1976.

For the full list of highest-scoring teams in a single event, check out the report below (full screen view here).