Beavers head to ASU, WOU
April 07, 2016 | Women's Track & Field
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State track & field program will divide its team this weekend and compete at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe and at the John Knight Twilight Meet at Western Oregon University.
The 37th annual Sun Angel Classic, at Sun Angel Stadium, runs Friday and Saturday. Nearly 1,000 athletes from OSU, ASU, Air Force, Boise State, BYU, College of the Sequoias, CSU-Stanislaus, Illinois State, Iowa State, Kansas, Minnesota, Mt. San Antonio CC, New Mexico, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Washington State, UC-Riverside, UC-San Diego and UTEP, or with club or unattached status, are expected to compete.
Coach Kelly Sullivan said competing in a high-profile meet is the next step in OSU's ongoing quest to become a comprehensive, competitive program.
“The whole idea behind it, as our program improves and as our athletes get better, is to go to bigger and better meets,” he said. “That's the objective, across the board, for this group. It is great exposure, and a significant step. We will compete against a lot of team we've never competed against.
“To compete in that environment” will help prepare the Beavers for bigger meets to come. “They want to be there, they are excited to be there, they have high expectations and the weather should be great.
“Sun Angel Stadium is a great venue, the meet is one of the oldest and most prestigious meets in the country. World records have been set there and there will be world-class athletes there.”
The Twilight Meet, at McArthur Stadium in Monmouth, is Friday only.
Redshirt freshman hurdler Alba Villaronga, who missed the 2015 season with a foot injury, will make her college debut at WOU. She ran a career-best 13.61 in the 100 hurdles for the Spanish junior national team.
The middle distance runners who ran at the Stanford Invitational and at the San Francisco State Distance Carnival on April 2-3 will not run this weekend. Junior Morgan Anderson (1500, 4:23.53) and freshman Juliana Mount (800, 2:12.03) each had OSU all-time top-10 marks at Stanford in their respective events. Mount, Holly Cavalluzzo, Emily Weber and Kristiane Width had season-best times in the 1500 at the Distance Carnival.
Anderson won her section of the 1500 at Stanford by coming from behind and running down two opponents on the final lap.
“She made some adjustments during the race that she's never made before,” Sullivan said. “She took some risks that we have been encouraging our kids to do.
“We'd rather they take risks and fail, then to never take risks at all. They've bought into that. They've wanted to hear that from us and believed that we feel they are ready to perform at the highest level.”
The Beavers will compete at the Oregon Relays at Hayward Field on April 14-16. Their lone home competition is the annual High Performance Meet, set for April 29-30 at the Whyte Track & Field Center.
This weekend's probable entries:
Sun Angel Classic Friday
POLE VAULT: Helen Ann Haun, Gillette Field, Annie Sidor.
HAMMER: Rachel Picknell, Melissa Ausman.
Sun Angel Classic Saturday
400 METERS: Venessa D'Arpino.
100 HURDLES: Devin Collins.
400 HURDLES: Devin Collins, Kerissa D'Arpino.
400 RELAY: Venessa D'Arpino, Devin Collins, Jasmin McKenzie, Kerissa D'Arpino.
1600 RELAY: Devin Collins, Kerissa D'Arpino, Venessa D'Arpino, Kelsi Schaer.
HIGH JUMP: Sara Almen, Amy Hilger, Allison Jackson, Jessica Lautenbach.
LONG JUMP: Jasmin McKenzie.
TRIPLE JUMP: Bethany Imperial, Michele Turney.
DISCUS: Rachel Picknell, Melissa Ausman, McKenzie Byrd, Kayla Fleskes.
JAVELIN: McKenzie Byrd, Kindel Bailey, Kayla Fleskes, Amber Peschka.
John Knight Twilight Meet
400 METERS: Kala Kopecek, Kimberly Solberg.
5000 METERS: Rachel Johnson.
100 HURDLES: Alba Villaronga.
400 HURDLES: Dakota Steen.
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