Strong Fields Coming To Corvallis For OSU High Performance Meet
April 25, 2013
OSU High Performance Heat Sheets 
Note: Heat 2 Will Be Run First In Each Event
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CORVALLIS, Ore. - A busy Friday afternoon and evening of athletics action on the Oregon State campus will begin at 3 p.m. at the Whyte Track and Field Center when the Beavers host their inaugural OSU High Performance Meet, the second event of 2013 at the program's brand new facility.
Oregon State will be welcoming a strong field to Corvallis for an event it hopes will blossom into a mainstay on the late April track and field schedule. Earlier this season, on March 23, the Beavers hosted a successful meet with Portland and Willamette, the first at OSU since 1988. A more complete look at the historical significance behind Oregon State hosting track and field competition can be found at this link.
"As a staff and as a program we are absolutely thrilled to be putting on this meet and have the level interest we have received from those that are attending," Oregon State head coach Kelly Sullivan said. "The quality of the meet surpasses, in this first year, what we could have ever dreamed and we are looking forward to putting on an amazing event. We see this developing into a traditional high-performance type of meet that will draw from all over the Northwest and possibly around the country in the future."
The meet begins at 3 p.m. with the javelin followed by the high jump, shot put, long jump and triple jump. Field events will wrap up around 5:45 p.m. with the discus. Events on the track begin at 5:15 p.m. and will include the 100, 400, 1,500, 3,000 steeplechase, 200, 800 and 5,000. The pole vault and hurdles will not be contested because the infrastructure needed for those events has not been completed. A full schedule can be found below.
The event on Friday is free and open to the public. Temporary stands have been put in place to accommodate expected crowds, but fans wishing to attend are encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs. Free all-day parking is available in the gravel lot by the track. Spaces adjacent to Reser Stadium will also be free beginning at 5 p.m. The Whyte Track and Field Center entrance is located east of the 26th and Western intersection, between the Hilton Garden Inn and the OSU Softball Complex.
This Friday's edition of action just south of Western Boulevard will boast over 240 entries, including high school and collegiate All-Americans, Olympic Trials qualifiers, plus collegiate teams from Oregon, Portland, Seattle, Western Oregon and Concordia (Ore.), in addition to numerous open, elite, club and collegiate redshirts.
Headlining the historic event will be the return of nearly two dozen Ducks for track and field competition in Corvallis for the first time since 1987. Oregon hasn't made the trip up Highway 99 since the 1987 Pac-10 Championships were held at Patrick Wayne Valley Field. That year, UCLA won both the men's and women's titles and the Bruins' Gail Devers was a six-time conference champion in the 100, 200, 100 hurdles, long jump, 4x100 and 4x400.
Oregon State's entries on Friday include Kaitlyn Mason in the 100, Carly Januzzi and Taylor Hunt in both the 200 and 400, Lacey London and Emily LaValley in the 800 and Emily Weber, Kinsey Gomez, Kelsi Schaer, Lauren Graebner, Ashley Mayfield and Maureen Tremblay in the 1,500.
Last weekend, Gomez moved into second on Oregon State's all-time list in the 5K at Mt. SAC after cutting 14 seconds off her previous best to finish 10th in the event's 'A' section with a time of 16:24.17. Her mark is now only shy of former OSU All-American Laura Carlyle, who ran 16:05.04 at the NCAA West Regional in 2011. With the effort, Gomez's time puts her in position to earn a berth at this year's Regional in Austin, Texas.
In a stacked 5K field that included an Olympian and Oregon's Jordan Hasay at the Oregon Relays last Friday, freshman Emily Weber ran her second-ever try at the distance in 16:57.67 to finish ninth. Weber, who has run two 1,500's and two 5K's during her freshman campaign, is now ninth on Oregon State's all-time list in the 5,000 and owns the fourth-fastest time for a freshman in the conference this season.
Schaer's 1,500-meter time of 4:30.46 from the Oregon Relays last Friday is also the fourth-best by a Pac-12 freshman during the outdoor season thus far.
Adrienne Demaree, Emily Wheeler, Aly Nielson and Sandra Martinez will run the 5,000, while Hilary Sharpe will represent the Orange & Black in the 3,000 steeplechase.
In the jumps, Oregon State will have Justine Bird (high), Jessica Lautenbach (high), Kristin Oenning (high), Lucinda Howard (high), Michele Turney (long, triple), Kaitlyn Mason (long, triple) and Rylee Marshall (triple).
At the Beavers' first home meet in 25 years on March 23, Turney posted a school-record leap of 39' 0.25" in the triple jump, the top mark for a Pac-12 freshman in 2013.
Mary Claire Brenner (shot put, discus, javelin) and Kayla Fleskes (discus, javelin) will again compete for OSU in the throws, along with Julian Dansk in the men's discus.
All-American Sam Crouser and NCAA qualifiers Chancey Summers and Taylor Wallace, as well as multi-sport standout and the younger sister of Mary Claire, Liz Brenner, are parts of the group making the trip from Eugene. Crouser will draw assignments in the shot put and discus, Brenner will throw the javelin, Summers will compete in the high jump and Wallace in the 1,500.
Crouser was the Pac-12's champion in the javelin last season and also the U.S. Olympic Trials Silver Medalist. He was the 2010 national Track & Field News boy's prep athlete of the year, Gatorade boy's track and field athlete of the year and broke a 22-year-old national prep record in the javelin with a throw of 244-2/74.42m, eventually upping that mark to 255-4/77.82m. His father, Dean, and uncles, Brian and Mitch, all competed at the last track and field meet hosted by OSU at Patrick Wayne Valley field in 1988, the Oregon Senior The Athletics Congress (TAC) Championships on June 11.
The recently completed first phase of Oregon State's construction project was officially unveiled at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in September and features an IAAF-certified Olympic-caliber surface, FieldTurf infield, nine-lane track, high jump aprons, long jump and triple jump runways, pole vault and javelin runways, shot put area throw sectors and dual discus rings. Phase II, for which fundraising it still ongoing, consists of a larger portion of the infrastructure needed to host a meet - grandstands and hammer facility and equipment like hurdles, a pole vault pit and timing system.
Additionally, on Sunday, OSU's Taylor Nowlin will travel to the San Francisco for the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford and attempt to achieve a regional qualifying time in the 3,000 steeplechase. The junior ran 10:47.07 at the Oregon Relays last Friday, which is currently just shy of being a qualifying mark.
Final Full Schedule
FIELD EVENTS
3:00 p.m. -- Women's Javelin, Men to Follow
3:30 p.m. -- Women's High Jump, Men to follow
4:00 p.m. -- Women's Shot Put, Men to Follow
4:00 p.m. -- Women's Long Jump, Men to follow
5:15 p.m. -- Women's Triple Jump, Men to follow
5:45 p.m. -- Women's Discus, Men to Follow
TRACK EVENTS
4:50 p.m. -- National Anthem
5:00 p.m. -- Senior Recognition
5:15 p.m. -- Women's 100m (2)
5:25 p.m. -- Men's 100m (2)
5:35 p.m. -- Women's 400m (2)
5:45 p.m. -- Men's 400m (2)
5:55 p.m. -- Women's 1500m (1)
6:05 p.m. -- Men's 1500m (1)
6:20 p.m. -- Women's 2000m Steeplechase (1)
6:40 p.m. -- Men's 3000m Steeplechase (1)
6:55 p.m. -- Women's 200m (2)
7:05 p.m. -- Men's 200m (2)
7:15 p.m. -- Women's 800m (2)
7:25 p.m. -- Men's 800m (2)
7:40 p.m. -- Invitational Women's 1500m (1)
7:50 p.m. -- Invitational Men's 1500m (1)
8:00 p.m. -- Women's 5000m (1)
8:25 p.m. -- Men's 5000m (1)
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