The weather in Eugene is in full capricious spring mode. Sunshine gives way to torrents of rain,followed by heavy gusts of wind. Then, back to sunshine.
But Oregon’s track and field team will be ready to compete Saturday in the Pepsi Invitational regardless of the color of the sky. Fresh off recent successes at the Texas Relays, the Ducks’ men and women return to historic Hayward Field to compete against Texas A&M, Washington State and Washington in one of the nation’s most hotly anticipated meets of the year.
On paper, the competition is strong across the board. Both Oregon teams are ranked nationally in the top five — the women are No. 2; the men, No. 4 — and will face their stiffest competition of the year in the Aggies, who enter the meet with the nation’s top-ranked men’s squad and No. 3 women’s team. The Huskies’ women come in at No. 15 in the polls, announced by the USTFCCCA. Washington State rounds out the competing schools, returning to the Pepsi Invitational for the first time since 1997.
Oregon’s women, hunting for another national championship are led, in part, by decorated sprinter English Gardner and the rest of the Ducks’ top-tier relay team. In Texas, Gardner, with teammates Phyllis Francis, Chizoba Okodogbe and Jenna Prandini, finished third in the 4×100 in 43.93, the fourth fastest time in school history. The Ducks will be matched up against maybe the strongest part of the No. 3 women’s Aggie team — the nation’s top-ranked 4×100 squad.
Gardner will also tangle with A&M’s Kamaria Brown in the 200 meters. Brown’s time of 22.85 earlier this year currently leads the nation, but Gardner’s 22.82 career-best time did come at Hayward Field during last season’s Pac-12 Championships. The junior Francis is also expected to hold her own. She finished just after Gardner is last year’s conference title meet with a 23:03.
For the men, it’s all eyes on the javelin throw.
Texas A&M senior Sam Humphreys returns to the scene of his greatest triumph last season, when he won the javelin throw at the U.S. Track and Field Trials last June at Hayward. Many thought Humphreys would qualify for Team USA, but his mark of 268 feet, 7 inches fell just five inches short of the required “A” standard. Instead, he’ll look to reestablish his dominance over Oregon’s Sam Crouser, who finished second to Humphreys in June to win silver.
And it won’t just be a two-pony race. A&M’s Devin Bogert is currently ranked sixth in the country in javelin, and No. 7 Joe Zimmerman is a dark horse for Washington.
On the track, two-sport speedster De’Anthony Thomas could break multiple meet records. In his sophomore track debut at the Oregon Relays, Thomas registered three first-place finishes, anchoring the men’s blistering time of 40.35 in the 4×100 that broke a 21-year-old meet record. Thomas is also scheduled to run in the 100 meters, but he has his work cut out for him. A&M’s Ameer Webb has the nation’s second-best time in the event this year (10.14), far better than the Pepsi Invitational’s 100m record of 10.30.