Oregon Ducks get two individual titles during Day 2 at Pac-12 Track & Field Championships
Jaida Ross and Rafael Raap capped the second day of the Pac-12 Track & Field Championships with individual event titles and the Oregon women moved into first place in the team standings.
Ross, the collegiate record holder, won her first conference title with a throw of 62 feet, 4½ inches Saturday afternoon at Potts Field in Boulder, Colorado. She was more than 7 feet ahead of runner-up Nana Gyedu of Washington State, whose best mark was 55-2.
Oregon's Colleen Uzoekwe placed seventh with a throw of 48-5½.
The two-time defending champion Ducks finished the day with 65 points to lead second-place UCLA (56) going into Sunday’s final day of action.
Raap won the decathlon with personal-record 7,719 points to become the 11th Duck to win a conference title in the event. Oregon has now won 21 Pac-12 decathlon titles.
Raap went into the event finale as the leader in 7,030 and secured his crown with a first-place finish in the 1,500 meters.
Arthur Katahdin finished in sixth place with 6,674 points.
Those 13 points helped move Oregon into a three-way tie for fourth place in the team standings with Arizona and Colorado with 26 points.
Oregon women get boost from heptathlon and steeplechase
The Oregon women scored 15 points in the heptathlon as three individuals finished in the top eight.
Taylor Chocek led the way with a second-place finish with 5,741 points — just shy of her PR of 5,793. Chocek was the leader at the start of the day but was passed by champion Avery McMullen of Colorado, who won with 5,913.
Oregon’s Annika Williams placed fourth with a PR 5,542 points and Gianna Bullock was seventh with a PR 5,203 points. Uzoekwe was ninth with 4,882.
Oregon State’s Anneke Moersdorf was third with 5,596.
Oregon also added 13 points from the women’s 3,000 steeplechase as freshman Katie Clute finished second in 10 minutes, 26.47 seconds, and Kendall Martin placed fourth in 10:58.23.
Results from preliminaries on the track
Jadyn Mays secured her second finals qualifier of the weekend when she ran a wind-aided 11.10 (+2.1) to lead all competitors in the women’s 100 prelims. Mays, the returning Pac-12 champion in the 100, qualified on Friday for the 200 final. Lily Jones also advanced to the final on time. Her 11.52 was the last non-automatic qualifier to make Sunday’s race. Competing but not advancing were Oregon’s Brazil Neal and Oregon State’s Abby Buckley and Jada Hurley.
PJ Ize-Iyamu not only ran the fastest qualifying time in the men’s 100 heats on Saturday, it was also the fastest race of his career. Ize-Iyamu set a PR with his wind-legal 10.18. He set his previous best of 10.20 at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson on April 27. Ize-Iyamu already was qualified for the 200 final, giving him two individual finals on Sunday. Competing but not advancing were Oregon’s Rodrick Pleasant and Caleb Hogan.
Klaudia Kazimierska ran a PR 2:03.29 for the fastest time in the women’s 800 prelims as the Oregon middle-distance standout qualified for Sunday’s final. Kazimierska will also race in Sunday’s 1,500 final. The Ducks’ Ella Nelson just missed advancing in the 800 as she finished ninth overall in 2:05.92. Oregon State’s Jillian Brown and Maya Baechler also didn’t advance.
The Oregon men will have four of the eight finalists in Sunday’s 800 final after dominating the prelims. Elliott Cook (1:47.79), Matthew Erickson (1:48.45) and Rheinhardt Harrison (1:49.49) each won their heats and Tomas Palfrey (1:49.69) advanced on time. James Harding nearly gave the Ducks a fifth finalist but his ninth-fastest time of 1:50.12 made him the first nonqualifier.
Ella Clayton and Katriina Wright will race in Sunday’s final in the women’s 400. Both Ducks finished second in their respective heats to earn an automatic qualifier. Clayton ran 52.64. Wright finished in 52.79. Oregon’s Lakely Doht-Barron also competed in the prelims but didn’t advance.
Other notable results
Senior Mason Strunk finished sixth in the men’s hammer for the second consecutive season. He went into his final attempt in eighth place but threw 224-9 to move three places in the standings and get the Ducks three points.
Oregon also scored three points in the men’s pole vault thanks to a seventh-place finish by Hunter Angove and an eighth-place finish by Harrison Canfield. Angove cleared 16-4½ and Canfield cleared 16-½. It was the first time either Duck had scored at a Pac-12 meet.
Oregon’s Giuliano Scasso earned a point in the team standings with his eighth-place finish in the men’s 3,000 steeplechase in 9:41.30.
Follow Chris Hansen on X @chansen_RG or email at chansen@registerguard.com.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks track & field at Pac-12 Championships: Day 2 updates
