UO at NCAA TR
UO release – AUSTIN, Texas – Jorinde van Klinken opened her final NCAA Championships with a runner-up finish in the shot put Thursday night at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. She and teammate Jaida Ross accounted for 12 points in the event which, added to Alysah Hickey’s finish in the long jump, put the Women of Oregon in second—17 points—in the team race at the end of day two of the national meet. The Ducks also advanced five to Saturday finals including the 1500-meter trio of Klaudia Kazimierska, Izzy Thornton-Bott and Maddy Elmore. Along with both relays qualifying for finals, Oregon will have additional scoring chances with van Klinken in the discus and Taylor Choceck in the heptathlon. Hickey recorded the team’s first points of the week with her fourth-place finish in the long jump. Down in sixth place ahead of her final attempt, she got out to a day’s best of 6.48m/21-3.25 to jump two spots in the overall standings. The result is a career-best showing at the NCAA Championships for Hickey, up a spot from placing fifth in 2021. In the shot put, van Klinken saved her best for round six with a toss of 18.48m/60-7.75 to go from fourth to second in the standings. The result matches her national runner-up finish a year ago when she was at Arizona State. She returns to the infield Saturday at 5:35 p.m. (PT) for the discus, an event she has won the previous two years. Ross also matched her NCAA finish from a season ago, placing fifth overall with a best of 18.11m/59-5 in the second round. The Medford, Ore., native added another 18-meter effort on her fifth attempt. The Ducks opened the evening session with a qualifying effort in the 4×100-meter relay. The team of Lily Jones, Jadyn Mays, Shana Grebo and Ella Clayton combined for a season-best showing of 43.09, good for the No. 10 spot on the program’s all-time list. The team came into the week with a best of 43.31 at the Pac-12 Championships. The 4×100-meter relay final will kick off Saturday’s television coverage at 6:02 p.m. (PT) on ESPN2. The UO women went 3-for-3 in the 1500 meters and will make up a quarter of the 12-runner final. In heat one, Kazimierska was part of a blanket finish among the spots two through five to secure a spot into the next round. Behind her, Elmore was making a charge into seventh to grab one of the two on-time spots with another heat to go. Kazimierska finished in 4:09.84 while Elmore’s kick down the final 100 meters resulted in a 4:11.49 outing. Thornton-Bott guaranteed her placement into the NCAA final by finishing fourth in heat two; the top five in each advanced automatically. The Pac-12 bronze finisher crossed the line in 4:18.30 in a slower race—top five were within seven tenths of each other—that assured Elmore’s finish in the first heat would stand up. The UO trio will line up for a run at the national title Saturday at 6:12 p.m. Clayton and Grebo returned for the 4×400-meter relay—the last event of the night—and teamed with Katriina Wright and Shaniya Hall to qualify for the final. The team finished third in its heat but ran well enough to secure the fastest at-large time in the field. Their time of 3:28.85 was just .01 off a season’s best from the NCAA West Preliminary. The final of the 4×400-meter relay will be the last event of the week, scheduled for an 8:21 p.m. (PT) start. In the women’s first result of the day, Shelby Moran finished ninth in the hammer throw. Sitting in 11th place after the second round of flight two, the Sherwood, Ore., native let go of a day’s best measure of 66.28m/217-5 to qualify for the final. By round’s end, Moran was in seventh place. However, she would not improve on that third-round effort and finished just out of scoring position. Freshman Rafael Raap capped his first NCAA-meet decathlon in 14th place with 7,607 points. He tallied two more season bests Thursday with efforts in the 110-meter hurdles and pole vault, good for four in the two-day competition in Austin. After a weather delay, Raap had a pair of top-four event finishes in the discus and javelin. In another near finish for the UO women—this time in qualifying—Mays was 10th in the semifinals of the 200 meters. Running out of heat three, she crossed the line in 22.73 but was just .04 shy of a lane in the final. The third heat Thursday produced five of the 10-fastest times in the round. Up next: Micah Williams will line up in the final of the 100 meters Friday at 6:52 p.m. (PT) on ESPN2. The Portland, Ore., native is making this third-career appearance in the NCAA final. Day three will also mark the beginning of the heptathlon for Chocek in her debut at the national meet. The two-day, seven-event competition starts at 12:45 p.m. (PT) with the 100-meter hurdles.
OSU at Austin, TX
OSU report – AUSTIN, Texas – Kaylee Mitchell and Grace Fetherstonhaugh advanced to the finals in the 3,000m Steeplechase with both earning automatic qualifiers. The top five athletes from each of the two heats and the next two best times earned qualifying spots. Mitchell won the heat with a time of 9:51.46 while Fetherstonhaugh placed third in 9:52.02. “Kaylee and Grace showed their veteran presence and navigated that prelim smoothly. It’s 80+ degrees out here, which is not ideal at all and they are crushing it,” Oregon State head coach Louie Quintana said. “On to Saturday.” The Beavs pulled away as the race went on, moving as many as 50 to 75 meters away from the field at points in the race along with New Mexico’s Elise Thorner. The three leaders were able to cruise to the finish, avoiding the mad dash for the final two automatic spots and saving their legs for Saturday’s finals. Oregon State will have Fetherstonhaugh, Mitchell and Jade Whitfield in action on Saturday. The steeplechase is currently slated for 6:24 p.m. PT with Whitfield’s flight of the discus estimated to begin at 6:30 p.m. The meet is televised on ESPN2 and event-specific livestreams are available for the field events on ESPN+.