WEEKEND PREVIEW: Sprints, Jumps & Throws at Mt. SAC

The Mt. SAC Relays are known for phenomenal distance races – and the 2015 editions of those events look like they’ll live up to that hype.

But fans that only focus on those endurance events will be missing out on some of the great match-ups and athletes of the current track & field season – many of which will likely be reprised at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon, later this summer on June 10-13.

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From the hurdles and sprints on the track to the jumps and throws in the field, each one has NCAA champions and/or collegiate leaders taking on some of their would-be challengers.

This weekend’s action will be streamed live on Flotrack Pro, so listed below is a selection of events/athletes to watch in chronological order.

Friday

Men’s Open Pole Vault

4pm ET/1pm PT

Why the open pole vault and not Saturday’s invitational section, you might ask? Two words: Shawn Barber. Akron’s two-time defending indoor national champion and indoor collegiate record holder continues his assault on the outdoor record book on Friday, having moved up to a share of the No. 2 spot all-time with a Texas Relays win at 19-4¼ (5.90m). He has his eyes set on the outdoor collegiate record of 19-7½ (5.98m), currently held by Lawrence Johnson of Tennessee from 1996.

Saturday

Women’s Pole Vault Invitational

2:30pm ET/11:30am PT

From the men’s pole vault to the women’s. Though Emily Grove of South Dakota won’t be making her 2015 debut (she was originally listed in the meet entries but is not in the latest meet program), we still get to see another woman who is quickly becoming a much larger part of the Year of the Vault: Megan Clark of Duke. The NCAA indoor runner-up recently moved up into a share of the No. 6 spot on the all-time performers list with a leap of 14-9 (4.50m) – which is the same height that earned her second indoors – and will look to become the fourth active collegian at 15 feet or higher (alongside the last two NCAA indoor champions in Sandi Morris of Arkansas and Kaitlin Petrillose of Texas, and indoor collegiate record holder Demi Payne of Stephen F. Austin).

Women’s Shot Put Invitational

4pm ET/1pm PT

When frosh phenom Raven Saunders of Southern Illinois won the NCAA indoor shot put title at 61-1¼ (18.62m), she became the farthest-throwing collegiate shot putter of all time – No. 4 on the performers list, to be specific. You don’t have to go back much farther to find the most dominant shot putter in collegiate indoor history, though: Tia Brooks threw a whopping 63-¾ (19.22m) to win the 2013 title as a senior at Oklahoma. The two will clash this weekend; the future vs. the legend. For reference, Brooks’ best throw as a first-year collegian was 54-11¼ (16.74m) to finish fifth at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Men’s Hammer Throw Invitational

4:30pm ET/1:30pm PT

After winning the World Junior Championships title in the hammer throw in 2010, Conor McCullough’s career as a thrower at Princeton in 2012 was meteoric: brilliantly lighting up the national leaderboards in the weight throw and the hammer throw, but ultimately fading away as quickly as he appeared without making an impact on the NCAA Championship scene. He left Princeton and in now at Southern California with a sixth-and-final year of eligibility after injuries. He’s the collegiate leader in 2015 at 233-7 (71.21m), but has much room for improvement with a career-best of 253-3 (77.20m). He’ll be up against Nick Miller (of Oklahoma State, but competing unattached), who has a career-best of 247-5 (75.41m).

Men’s 100 Meters Invitational

5:36pm ET/2:36pm PT

He won’t be at Mt. SAC, but Baylor’s defending 100-meter champion Trayvon Bromell appears to have the title of “best 100-meter sprinter in the NCAA” sealed up at the moment following his 10.02 and 9.90w races at the Texas Relays, but who’s No. 2? That’s a question that could very well be answered this weekend as indoor 60-meter runner-up John Teeters of Oklahoma State squares off with the Southern California duo of Andre De Grasse and BeeJay Lee. The duo is ranked No. 3 and No. 5 in the USTFCCCA list (which includes the top times by returners from the 2014 season for one final week). Teeters won the open section of this meet a year ago with a career-best 10.14.

Women’s 100 Meters Invitational

5:46pm ET/2:46pm PT

They’ll run two sections of this race, with the first pitting one of the nation’s top collegians against the country’s top professionals, and the second pitting a few of the top collegians against one another.

Oregon’s Jenna Prandini – who has scored a combined 47 points at her past two NCAA Championship meets – takes the track against former multiple-time NCAA champions English Gardner – Prandini’s former teammate – and Kimberlyn Duncan (formerly of LSU and winner of the 2012 Bowerman Trophy). Prandini recently surpassed Duncan on the all-time indoor 200-meter list, and will attempt to beat her in person this weekend.  She ran her career-best 11.11 at this meet a year ago before going on to finish third in the event at NCAAs, but has not yet run this event in 2015.

In the second section, Prandini’s teammate Jasmine Todd will take on the Southern California duo of Tynia Gaither and Ky Westbrook. The latter was the NCAA runner-up at 60 meters, while Todd finished third in that race. How will the longer distance turn the tables?

Women’s 100-Meter Hurdles Invitational

6:12pm ET/3:12pm PT

Just like the flat 100-meters, the hurdles features a classic past vs. present/future match-up. Indoors, Southern California frosh Dior Hall broke the indoor world junior record in the 60-meter hurdles NCAA semifinals and would have contended for a top-three spot in the final had she not tripped over a hurdle halfway through the race. She’s already No. 6 on the 2015 outdoor list with just one race under her belt at 13.00 (+2.1m/s), and has the world junior record of 12.84 and the American junior record of 12.87 (set by Kendell Williams a year ago) squarely in her sights. Pushing her this weekend will be former Bowerman Trophy finalists Kori Carter (who finished runner-up at NCAAs in this event while at Stanford to Bowerman winner Brianna Rollins in 2013) and Brianne Theisen-Eaton (a former NCAA champion in the heptathlon wile at Oregon).

Women’s Hammer Throw Invitational

6:30pm ET/3:30pm PT

DeAnna Price of Southern Illinois is coming off an upset of current collegiate leader Brooke Pleger of Bowling Green at last weekend’s Tennessee Sea Ray Relays, and things don’t get any easier for her this weekend. She will square off against Ida Storm of UCLA in what will be the UCLA senior’s fourth meet since a heartbreaking runner-up finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the weight throw – the third of her career. The Bruin did not compete outdoors a year ago, but will look to regain the form that saw her throw 223-3 (68.05m) at this meet in 2013 for a fifth-place finish – the same place she would ultimately finish at NCAAs.

On the USTFCCCA list, Storm is No. 3 and Price is No. 6 with her 220-7 (67.25m) throw from late March [Storm has gone 65.08m this season]. Sitting just ahead of Price at No. 5 with a 221-2 (62.83m) throw from last May is Oregon’s Jillian Weir. All three will be in this field, along with No. 9 Shelby Ashe of Georgia, who is a former three-time USA junior champion and a World Junior Championships qualifier in the hammer throw.

Men’s High Jump Invitational

7pm ET/4pm PT

In what will perhaps be the best outdoor high jump competition of the season thus far, this invitational section will features a trio of men at different points in their careers in Mississippi State’s Marcus Jackson, Marquette’s Wally Ellenson and Southern California’s Randall Cunningham.

First, there’s Marcus Jackson of Mississippi State, the fifth-year senior who used career-best jumps of 7-6 (2.29m) to finish runner-up and third at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2013 and 2014, but missed all of what would have been his senior outdoor season a year ago. He’s back in a big way, having already come up just one centimeter shy of his PR this year.

While Jackson was out last summer, Wally Ellenson – then of Minnesota but now a junior at Marquette – took runner-up honors at the NCAA Championships. He was third at NCAAs this year indoors after opening his season with a career-best 7-5¾ (2.28m).

Cunningham, a frosh at SC who was routinely jumping higher than seven feet in high school, didn’t qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships but is well on his way to contending for points outdoors. He’s cleared 7-4¼ (2.24m) at the Florida Relays this year, finishing behind Jackson.

Women’s 200 Meters Invitational

7:53pm ET/4:53pm PT

Of all the non-distance events on the schedule, this one might be the most intriguing and star-studded. Though she didn’t win the NCAA title indoors (she was runner-up), Prandini of Oregon finished as the fastest collegian of the 2015 season. She’ll go head-to-head with early-season outdoor No. 2 Deanna Hill of Southern California, as well as her teammate Gaither and Iowa’s No. 14 Brittany Brown from the collegiate ranks. They’ll be chasing (or chased by) former Oregon Duck Phyllis Francis and the all-world pro DeeDee Trotter.