PROJECTIONS: Day One Shakes Up Women’s DI National Team Title Race

Check back later this morning for the men’s team outlook for the final day of the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – National team titles are officially won on day two at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships, but day two glory isn’t possible without a successful day one.

MORE: National Championships Central

And what a day one the women of Oregon, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas had.

Georgia’s and Arkansas’ success shows up on the day one scoreboard, as the Bulldogs lead with 27 points and the defending national champion Razorbacks sit in second at 19.

Both teams benefited from historic field event performances: Georgia got a collegiate record from Kendell Williams in the pentathlon and Williams was part of the highest-scoring trio in women’s long jump history, while Arkansas became the first school with three scorers in the same NCAA Championships pentathlon.

But the day one scoreboard can often be misleading. Take Oregon and Texas, for instance. They are tied for last (20th) and off the scoreboard, respectively, but both are now projected to contend for the national team title and the four-spot team podium.

Speaking of new projections, here are the new, very unofficial projections from this Director of Communications:

Projections are based on a combination of the results from yesterday’s preliminary rounds and event finals, with a degree of non-biased subjectivity injected in the process.

How did we get here?

Oregon significantly outperformed expectations in the sprints. The Ducks, based on the pre-meet descending order lists, were expected to score 20 points between the 60, 200, 400, 60H and 4×400 relay.

Then Friday happened. Hannah Cunliffe ran the fastest 60 and No. 2 200; Sasha Wallace ran the fastest 60-hurdles; and a pair of freshmen stepped up for finals appearances in 200 sprinter Deajah Stevens and 60 hurdler Alaysha Johnson.

Now, we project the Ducks to emerge from Day 2 with as many as 41 points combined from those events; I originally pegged the Ducks for 32 total the entire weekend, based on seeds. The key will be if especially Deajah Stevens and Alaysha Johnson can repeat their breakout performances from the first day. If not, the Ducks start to run into some headwinds and fall back closer to the pack.

Add in 10 more points from overwhelming top-seeded 800 runner Raevyn Rogers, and hope for some points from two shot putters, and the Ducks are looking good to reclaim their national team title.

Meanwhile, Georgia is riding high on historic performances from Friday and will depend on another in the high jump today.

The Bulldogs have four entries in the high jump (astonishingly, without two-time defending national champion Leontia Kallenou, who did not qualify), three of whom are seeded seventh or better. A day after becoming the first team since 1999 with three scorers in the long jump in the same meet, they’ll look to become the first team in meet history with three or more scorers in the same NCAA Championships high jump.

Furthermore, they’ll be expecting more points from Williams in the high jump after already racking up 14 points between the pentathlon and long jump (tied with Amy Menlove of BYU in 2005 for the most all-time for that combo); no woman has ever scored in the pentathlon and then scored in two more open events.

Plus, they’ll need 10 points from pre-meet triple jump favorite and fourth-place long jumper Keturah Orji, a feat that would mark just the fifteenth time in meet history a female athlete has scored a combined 15 points from the long and triple jumps.

Texas sprinters had a big day on Friday, and a repeat of that performance could result in big points for the Longhorns. Defending national 400-meter champ Courtney Okolo looked dominant, and was joined by the No. 2 woman in Chrisann Gordon. The two will hope to post top-three finishes today, and then combine at meet’s end for the top-seeded 4×400 relay.

Texas was nearly as good at 60 meters, as Teahna Daniels ran 7.14 for one of the fastest times in meet history and the No. 2 seed from the semifinals, while Morolake Akinosun came through at No. 4. An X-factor for the Longhorns would be for Kaitlin Petrillose to summon the same magic that won her the 2014 NCAA pole vault title in a then-collegiate record, but has since eluded her.

Projected just behind the Longhorns is Arkansas, who followed pentathlon runner-up Taliyah Brooks to the first-ever trio of scorers in the event’s history and 15 total points. Sometimes things just break your way, too: Akela Jones’ decision to step off the track at 800 meters likely gave two points to the Razorbacks. Four points from the distance medley relay was a bonus, too, after not being projected to score pre-meet.

In order to reach their potential and make a long-shot run at defending their national title, the Razorbacks will need big performances from the Weeks sisters Lexi (the top seed) and Victoria (tied for the sixth seed) and from Taylor Ellis-Watson in both the 400 and 4×400 relay. Any additional points from surprise hurdles qualifier Payton Stumbaugh – also part of that historic pentathlon trio – would be hugely beneficial, both in terms of more points for Arkansas and potentially displacing competitors from Oregon and Notre Dame.

Speaking of Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish got 15 points combined from 5000-meter winner Molly Seidel and fourth-place Anna Rohrer, and another three from the DMR. Seidel and Rohrer are on the line again today at 3000 meters, projected for double-digit points, while Margaret Bamgbose at 400 meters and Kaila Barber in the 60-meter hurdles will look to add significant points.

Both sprint events are crucial in the team races, with ND, Arkansas and Oregon all represented in the hurdles and Texas, Florida and Arkansas all entered at 400 meters.

We’ve come all this way and not mentioned pre-meet favorite Florida. That’s because the Gators are seemingly taking a page from their reptile brethren in the “Tortoise and the Hare”: slow and steady wins the race. Conserve as much energy as possible on Friday to be strong on Saturday.

Seeded seventh and eighth at 400 meters are Kyra Jefferson and Claudia Francis, so they have some room for growth in the quarter-mile, and defending 200-meter champion Jefferson won her heat but only nabbed the No. 4 seed from the semifinals. The Gators’ title hopes depend largely on Jefferson, who is not only attempting the difficult 200/400 double but also running on the Gators’ 4×400 relay in what could be a crucial event with Arkansas, Texas and Oregon also entered.