Athletes Annika Williams and Koby Kessler entered Saturday’s second day of the Big Ten Outdoor Track Championships with leads in the heptathlon and decathlon, respectively. The day turned out dramatically different for each.
As of the beginning of both the men’s and women’s steeplechase, Oregon men posted 49 points through the eight of 21 scored events so far, which is second and 13 points behind Nebraska. Oregon women accumulated 20 points through three of the 21 scored events, which is second and four points behind leaders Minnesota.
Williams entered with a commanding lead of the event and the sixth-year senior knew she had what it took to complete a victory.
“I told myself ‘You’ve been in this position before, you always go into day two either in the lead or second and anything can happen to anyone…especially recovery wise,’” Williams said. “I just told myself ‘do what you have to do, trust yourself, trust your coach, trust your training, and everything will flow as it’s supposed to.’”
Williams remained in the lead for the day after placing third in high jump with a 6.00 and posting a season best 41.45 in javelin, which also placed her third.
Going into the 800m, Williams was ahead by 210 points overall.
“Everybody knows the 800 is the seventh event, our legs are dead, my mind was racing, anxiety was through the roof,” Williams said. “I was like ‘stay with the people you know that run the same times and they’ll pace you all the way through.’ I came in way faster than I was supposed to, and I just kept going.”
Despite her 15th place finish in the final event, Williams secured a 63 point victory in the heptathlon with a personal best 5914 cumulative score.
“Being that close to 6000 points is great, I would love to get to 6000,” Williams said. “Like I said, I didn’t (personal best) in anything this weekend. Anything could have been a little bit better for me to get to that 6000.”
The Ducks didn’t get the most points from that event as a team due to them only having Williams competing.
Kessler faltered from the start and didn’t place higher than seventh in the first three events — 110m hurdles (seventh), discus (11th) and the pole vault (10th) — which placed him in fifth overall going into the last two events.
Eighth place in Javelin dropped Kessler to sixth before the 1500m, but his second place, 4:23.93 time jumped him up to fourth place in the overall standings.
The freshman decathlete posted a personal best 7303 score for the weekend, which added points to Oregon men’s team total.
“It’s not my best day two, but that was everything I had,” Kessler said. “I’m not sad about it, I’m not mad about it. There was nothing in the tank, so nothing to be regretful about.”
Aiden Carter placed eighth with a 7058 and Arthur Katahdin finished in 12th with a 6341.
Former Oregon athlete Rafael Rapp won the decathlon for Illinois with a 7572 score.
“(Rapp’s) day two’s are really good,” Kessler said. “I know his throws are really good and so is his vault. He weighs quite a bit more than me, so it’s a little bit of an opposite from me. I knew I was really gonna have to fight for it if I wanted a chance to get on the upper end of the podium.”
Two Ducks Cheikh M’Baye and Safin Wells finished in fifth and sixth in the long jump. Shaun Miller, Jr. posted a 2.06 high jump to tie for sixth in the conference.
Freshman thrower Kobe Lawrence tossed an exceptional 19.42 in the shot put to take third place in the competition. During the women’s 100m hurdles qualifying, Oregon junior Aaliyah McCormick clocked the only sub-13 second time with a 12.94, which was also a season best for her.
Going into day three of the conference championship, Oregon has a concrete opportunity to secure titles on both the men’s and women’s sides. It will take incredible efforts from all the athletes as each event wraps up on Sunday.
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