CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY: Difficult Doubles & Triples

This is the latest in a series of posts based on the USTFCCCA’s NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships History page – the most comprehensive collection of the meet’s history anywhere on the web – leading up to the 2016 edition March 11-12 in Birmingham, Alabama. The page can be viewed in its entirety here.

NEW ORLEANS – As if scoring in one event at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships isn’t tough enough, several teams are staking potential national team title aspirations on star athletes doubling-up – and even tripling-up – in multiple events.

Some of these doubles have become fairly routine in recent years. For instance, take Edward Cheserek of Oregon. The two-time defending national champion Ducks will be counting on a pair of wins and 20 points from the junior in the 3000 and 5000 on Saturday and Friday, respectively, but that’s nothing he hasn’t done before.

Just two years ago as a frosh, King Ches claimed that double as part of his earth-shattering breakthrough campaign (derailing an attempt by Lawi Lalang of Arizona to notch the first-ever triple crown of titles in the mile, 3000 and 5000, along the way).

Replicating this feat, as he’s expected to do, would make him just the third man to double up in those events twice in a career (joining Arkansas’ Alistair Cragg in 2003 and 2004 and David Kimani of South Alabama then Alabama in 2000 and 2001) and the first to do it in non-consecutive seasons. (Former teammate Eric Jenkins could be the bridge with a sweep of the two events a year ago.)

Overall, that double has been achieved eight times since the turn of the new millennium – or once every other year – with more than two-dozen men scoring double-digit points between the two events in a given year.

No. 3 Florida – the winners of three national team titles in a row before Oregon’s current two-year run – will be depending on big points from a much more unorthodox double in their upset/title-reclamation bid.

Senior Arman Hall is entered both at 200 and 400 meters, seeded No. 4 and No. 6, respectively. Though his seed times indicate the potential for a favorable result, he’s got time working against him in a couple other ways.

First of all, time is short in between the 400 and 200 meter races. There’s less than an hour between the 400 and 200 semifinals on Friday, and only 40 minutes between the two finals on Saturday, with the meet-finale 4×400 relay following another 50 minutes later.

Secondly, time is also against him in terms of all-time results in this attempted double. Only six men have ever entered the Championships entered in this particular double and come out the other side with double-digit points.

Xavier Carter of LSU won the 400 and finished runner-up in the 200 in 2006 for 18 total points, but no one else has produced a pair of top-three finishes in this event combo.

The good news for Hall is that he, himself, is one of those six double-digit scorers. Back in 2014 he finished third at 400 meters and fourth in the 200. If he gets 10 points or more this year, not only will he help his team in the title hunt, but he’ll also become the first man to score double-digit points via this combo twice indoors in a career.

Florida & Georgia Women Depending on Historic Doubles/Triples

This year’s women’s national team title and the four spots on the team podium could also be greatly influenced by the results of some road-less-traveled doubles and triples.

The No. 1 Florida women will look for big points from the 200-400 double in both genders, as defending national 200-meter champion Kyra Jefferson looks to add more points at 400 meters. She’s ranked No. 2 at 200 and No. 4 at 400 meters, and will look to become the first woman since 2005 to score double-digit points from this combination.

That’s when Hazel Ann-Regis of LSU scored 13 with a runner-up finish at 400 meters and a fourth-place 200-meter showing. She’d like to either become the first double-champion in those events, or at least join Sanya Richards (Texas, 2004), Miki Barber (South Carolina, 2000) and Flirtisha Harris (Seton Hall, 1994) as the only women to score 18 points [a win and a runner-up finish] from this combo.

No. 3 Georgia doesn’t have a single entry in a championship track event – an unorthodox approach to the championships as it is – and the Bulldogs will be banking on a couple historic performances in the field from Kendell Williams and Chanice Porter.

History is nothing new for Williams, who has set the collegiate pentathlon record in both of her two NCAA Championship appearances. But what will be new for Williams is adding a pair of individual events to the mix in the long jump and high jump. She’s seeded No. 2 in the pentathlon (an even in which she’s the two-time national champion), No. 3 in the high jump and No. 11 in the triple jump.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky: no woman has ever finished top-eight in the pentathlon and scored in two additional open events.

Jackie Johnson of Arizona State came close in 2008 with a pentathlon win, a fifth-place long jump finish and a ninth-place showing in the high jump (just one spot away from scoring), and then Erica Bougard of Mississippi State in 2015 came just as close with a runner-up finish in the pent, a sixth-place effort in the 60-meter hurdles and an oh-so-close ninth-place showing in the long jump.

(The pentathlon wasn’t contested at the NCAA Championships until 2004, meaning a standout outdoor heptathlete from the ‘90s like Diane Guthrie-Gresham of George Mason could potentially have achieved this feat. Guthrie scored double-digit points in the high jump and long jump in both 1992 and 1995.)

Only Makeba Alcide of Arkansas in 2013 scored in both the high jump and the pentathlon for a total of nine points (a total both Williams and Akela Jones of Kansas State, who will be dueling Williams in the pentathlon and competing in the open high jump, will look to top). Two women have scored double-digit points in the pentathlon-long jump combo: Amy Menlove of BYU in 2005 and 2009, and Bougard in 2014.

Defending national team champion No. 4 Arkansas will also be looking for a pentathlon triple from Taliyah Brooks, who is ranked No. 3 in the pentathlon, No. 11 in the 60-meter hurdles and No. 14 in the long jump.

Meanwhile, Porter will look to become just the third woman to rack up a combined double-digit point total in the high jump and the long jump. She’s seeded well in both events at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, and she has a runner-up finish at NCAA indoors in the long jump from a couple years ago on her resume.

Brittney Reese of Mississippi is the current standard-bearer for this double, having won the long jump in 2008 with what was then the third-longest jump in meet history at 6.76m (22-2¼) [now No. 6 jump] and finished third in the high jump. The aforementioned Guthrie scored 14 and 11 points with this double in 1995 and 1992.

Just one year ago, Akela Jones got eight points out of this combo with a fourth-place high jump finish and a sixth-place long jump effort.

On top of all that, the Bulldogs could use double-digit points from Keturah Orji in the triple jump and long jump, too. She’s ranked No. 1 and No. 5 in those respective events, and will look to join a group of 11 women in meet history who have finished top-three in both events at the same Championships.

Elsewhere, either Allie Ostrander of Boise State or Molly Seidel of Notre Dame will look to become the third woman to sweep the 3000 and 5000 titles, joining two-time sweeper Abbey D’Agostino of Dartmouth, Kim Smith of Providence and Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech. Or, they could split and join Carrie Tollsefson of Villanova and Lisa Koll of Iowa State as the only additional 18-point scorers.