Middle distance. That is where the Oregon men’s track and field team will have to make its mark if the Ducks are going to win their first outdoor championships since 1984. While the women’s team has a stranglehold on the sprints, the men hope a saturation of participants in the 800, 1,500 and 10,000-meter races will be enough to lift Oregon from its No. 3 national ranking to a team that can win over powerhouses Florida and Texas A&M.
“The team title, that is where it gets exciting. I think that is where we start to dream a little bit,” Elijah Greer said. “I feel like we are the underdog and a lot of guys will have to perform to their best potential, but you know I like that.”
The middle distance races begin at the 800-meter length, for which Greer was the No. 1 qualifier, as well as the holder of this year’s best time at 1:46:20. The 1,500 has a wealth of Duck runners, as Mac Fleet, Chad Noelle and Patrick Todd all made the cut for the championships. Fleet had the seventh-best time in that event this year, while Todd and Noelle also finished in the top 20.
Parker Stinson and Matt Melancon just sneaked into the field for the 10,000 meters, slotted at the 22 and 24 spots.
UO will have no runners in the 100 or 200-meter dashes, but Mike Berry, who has the year’s third-best time of 45.14 in the 400 meters, serves as a potential point-grabber. Johnathan Cabral’s 13.33 time in the 110-meter hurdles was tops in the NCAA this season, and his performance as the lone Oregon hurdler will be key.
While Oregon will not field a 100-meter dash individual participant, the Ducks will appear in the 4×100. A trio of Duck football athletes, De’Anthony Thomas, B.J. Kelly and Dior Mathis, accompanied with track runner Arthur Delaney, makes up that relay team.
In the 4×400, Oregon finished second in the qualifiers with Berry as the anchor following Jack Galpin, Delaney and Kevin Anding.
Greg Skipper will compete in the hammer throw and Sam Crouser will toss the javelin, both qualifying in the top five.
Dakotah Keys, who edged out Washington’s Jeremy Taiwo in the Pac-12 Championships, automatically qualified for the championships, surpassing a trip to Austin to train instead.
“We will go out and compete,” head coach Robert Johnson said. “At the end of the day, whoever is sitting up there in the box punching in the scores and the Ducks win, we will take it.”