University of Oregon
NCAA Indoor Championships
Skipper Skies to Second in NCAA Indoor Finale
03/13/04 | Track and Field
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The University of Oregon men's track and field team wrapped up its most successful NCAA indoor appearance Saturday with a school record fourth indoor All-American honor thanks to an inspiring runner-up pole vault finish by Tommy Skipper.
The seven-entry Duck men's contingent - Oregon's largest ever - ended 18th in the team race with 13 points. The Men of Oregon also ended only two points shy of their all-time high score (15) from 2002 when they took ninth thanks to a hat trick of top-five individual finishes. Oregon's tally ranked third among Pac-10 teams just behind UCLA and ASU (12th-tie, 17), and ahead of Stanford (19th, 12), Washington (22nd, 11), Arizona (34th, 5), WSU (50th, 3) and USC (65th, 1 1/2).
The Oregon women had only one of their four individuals compete Saturday, and all four failed to score top-eight finishes and left the squad with no score. In Saturday's Duck highlight, freshman Tommy Skipper made an auspicious debut and challenged for the NCAA pole vault title in the upper 18-foot range before taking second (18-4 1/2) behind returning NCAA champion and indoor record holder Brad Walker, a redshirt senior for Washington (first, 18-8 1/4). Skipper opened the day with first attempt clearances at 17-4 1/2, 17-8 1/2, 18-0 1/2, then needed a second try at 18-4 1/2. Washington's Walker missed only his opening attempt at his starting height of 17-8 1/2, then cleared the rest of his first tries. Skipper led the competition early thanks to his initial clean slate, but when Skipper missed his first try at 18-8 1/2, and Walker converted, the Duck was forced to go up another bar to 19-0 1/4 for his remaining two tries, which he missed with solid attempts. "Personally, I'm a little disappointed because I came in here going for the win, and I didn't get it," Skipper said. "The frustrating part was that coach told me to adjust the standard before my first miss of the night, and I forgot to tell the officials to move them, and that definitely contributed to the miss." The Sandy High School product Skipper entered Saturday's competition seeded first nationally thanks to a 5 3/4-inch personal best in early Feburary in Idaho (18-8 3/4), while Walker followed one place behind on the national qualifying list (second, 18-1). On the Oregon all-time list, Skipper's early season clearance broke the school record of Olympian Kory Tarpenning who cleared 18-6 1/2 in 1985. The first-year phenom will chase his own Olympic dream in July's Olympic Trials after he met the A qualifying standard of 18-8 1/4. Skipper became the Ducks' third indoor All-America pole vaulter in event history after Trevor Woods took third as a sophomore in 2002 (indoor best 17-11 3/4), and Piotr Buciarski also took third as a senior in 1998 (18-0 1/2). Skipper's honor also stood as the Ducks' 21st overall in the event including outdoor collegiate finales, as he also challenged for UO's third NCAA crown after victories by George Rasmussen in 1947 (14-0) and 1948 (14-0). Overall this season, he opened the year with a 16-10 3/4 clearance in the Husky Invitational (third), then followed- with +18-foot efforts in February's Bodybuilding.com Invitational (first, 18-0 1/2), United Heritage Invitational (first, 18-8 3/4) and Mountain Pacific Championships (first, 18-1 3/4). He entered the season with a prior indoor best of 17-3 3/4 from his prep senior season in 2003, while he improved to a prep record 18-3 outdoors last June in the Golden West Invitational. "My goals coming into indoors were to clear 19 feet, get my Olympic Trials qualifier and try to win the national title," Skipper said. "I'm still working on those, and getting closer, and I have to give all the thanks in the world to a wonderful team, coach, university and training environment." In the triple jump, redshirt junior Leonidas Watson took 13th (50-1 3/4) in his second day of action after he secured All-America honors the day before in the long jump with his ninth-place finish. The St. Louis, Missouri native opened with a leap near 48-4 (14.71m to be exact), then improved to a mark near 49-8 on his second try (15.12m) and 50-1 3/4 (15.28) on this third try, and missed making the final by less than eight inches - with the eighth and final preliminary qualifying mark for the final at 50-9 1/2 (15.48m). Overall in the event, sixth seeded senior Lejuan Simon of LSU won by 11 1/4 inches (55-11 1/4) over teammate and the pre-meet top seed John Moffitt (second, 55-1). The transfer from St. Louis Community College Watson wrapped up an impressive debut campaign for the Ducks and now ranks fourth all-time for the Ducks in the triple jump (52-10 1/4) and ninth in the long jump (25-6 1/2) based on his season bests that also seeded him eighth going into both NCAA events. He began his Duck career with previous indoor bests of 24-9 in the long jump and 52-4 in the triple jump He arrived in Eugene as a two-time national junior college champion in the triple jump thanks to indoor and outdoor crowns in 2003, and also added runner-up finishes last year in the long jump in both meets. Looking ahead to outdoors in 2004, he'll look to improve on his current personal bests of 25-8 and 53-0 from last season. The 4x400 also fell short of its All-America goal when anchor leg and sophomore Matt Scherer strained his right hamstring 150 meters into his anchor leg and fell. The Sumner, Ill., native got up to still slowly jog the remaining lap to the finish line. The unit of Scherer, senior Brandon Holliday, junior Roderick Dotts, and sophomore Travis Anderson entered the meet seeded seventh in its first NCAA indoor appearance thanks to a school record and NCAA automatic mark of 3:06.54 a month ago in the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa. Their nearly-three second season best rewrote the previous record of 3:06.73 from the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Championships that featured three of Saturday's members (Anderson, Holliday and Scherer, and two-sport star Jordan Kent). Overall in the event, top-seeded Baylor won by a half-second (3:03.96) over Minnesota (second, 3:04.48) and Arizona State (third, 3:04.49). Coincidentally, Saturday's top two teams were on hand in the Ducks' school record in Ames and went 1-2 that day. The Ducks' four-man All-America tally also included first-day honors by sophomore Eric Mitchum (60 hurdles, sixth, 7.74), redshirt junior Leonidas Watson (long jump, ninth, 25-2 1/2) and redshirt senior Ryan Andrus (5,000, seventh, 14:03.21). Also on Friday, Scherer added duty in the 400 prelims (fourth-heat, 46.77). On the women's side, redshirt senior Abby Andrus made her first NCAA indoor appearance as the pentathlon made its collegiate indoor championship debut. Andrus had a good news and bad news effort with personal bests or near marks in three of the five events, before a trio of fouls in the long jump torpedoed her final tally and put her 16th overall with 3,075 points.
Andrus opened with a mark of 9.20 in the 60 hurdles, then followed with marks of 5-6 in the high jump and 36-0 in the shot put, before her foul in the long jump. She closed with a 2:23.05 effort in the 800. Breaking down Saturday's results, her shot put mark (36-0) was a season best by 1 1/2 inches, as was her 800 clocking (2:23.05) by .05 seconds, while her high jump mark (5-6) was only an inch shy of similar honors. Overall in the event, returning NCAA heptathlon champion Hyleas Fountain of Georgia (first, 4,412) held off the Pac-10 pair of Jacquelyn Johnson of ASU (second, 4,263) and Brooke Meredith of Cal (third, 4,1889). The Peoria, Ariz., native Andrus entered the meet with a personal best and NCAA provisional mark of 3,908 points last weekend in Moscow, Idaho that ranked her 11th on the year-end qualifying list. Andrus's appearance was her second in a collegiate finale as a Duck after she took 18th with 5,019 points in the 2003 NCAA heptathlon in 2003. She was also a national runner-up in the heptathlon as a junior college sophomore in 2002 and fourth as a freshman in 2000. Oregon's first-day UO women's entries from Friday included juniors Hannah Moore (pole vault, 13th, 12-11 1/2) and Magdalena Sandoval (5,000, 17th, 16:29.69-injured) and redshirt senior Eri Macdonald (800 prelims, 14th, 2:09.14). Overall in the final team races, the LSU women repeated as team champions with 52 points for their 14th title in 23 years of the championships' existence (it started in 1982). The Bayour Bengals also added their second national men's crown with 44 1/2 points to edge host Arkansas and Florida which tied for second (38), ahead of Texas (fourth , 31) and Michigan (fifth, 28). LSU's sweep of the team titles was the first in indoor NCAA meet history. Complete meet results are available at the
Looking ahead, the Duck men and women open their outdoor track and field season at home next Saturday, March 20 at Hayward Field in Eugene. Oregon, tentatively scheduled for an 11:30 am start. Ticket prices are $ 6 for reserved seats, $ 5 for adult general admission (GA), $ 3 for kids and senior citizen GA, and $ 2 individually for group rates. Call the Duck ticket office at 1-800-WEB-FOOT or (541) 346-4461 for more information. FINAL RESULTS - SECOND DAY NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships MEN'S RESULTS Team Scores - 1, LSU, 44 1/2. 2, Arkansas, 38. 2, Florida, 38. 4, Texas, 31. 5, Michigan, 28. 6, Purdue, 25. 6, Baylor, 25. 8, TCU, 19. 9, Ohio State, 20. 10, BYU, 19. 10, Wisconsin, 19. 12, UCLA, 17. 12, ASU, 17. 15, Minnesota, 14 1/2. 16, Kansas State, 14. 16, Auburn, 14. 18, Oregon, 13. 19, Stanford, 12. 19, Nebraska, 12. 19, Indiana, 12. Pole Vault - 1, Brad Walker, Washington, 18-8 1/4. 2, Tommy Skipper, Oregon, 18-4 1/2. 3, John Russell, Akron, 18-0 1/2. 4, Chris Steddum, South Carolina, 18-0 1/2. 5, Ray Scotten, Southern Illinois, 17-8 1/2. 6, Daniel Trosclair, LSU, 17-8 1/2. 6, Paul Gensic, Air Force, 17-8 1/2. 8, Brad Teeple, Nebraska, 17-8 1/2. 9, Pat Luke, UCLA, 17-4 1/2. 9, Brad Smith, Georgia, 17-4 1/2. 9, Robbie Pratt, BYU, 17-4 1/2. 13, Brandon Glenn, Arizona State, 16-10 3/4. 13, Chip Heuser, Florida, 16-10 3/4. 15, Paul Litchfield, Idaho State, 16-10 3/4. NH - Chris Chappell, Arizona. Triple Jump - 1, Lejuan Simon, LSU, 55-11 1/4. 2, John Moffitt, LSU, 55-1. 3, Willie Bradley, LSU, 54-5 1/4. 4, Lawrence Willis, Louisiana-Lafayette, 54-4. 5, Rafeeq Curry, Florida State, 52-8. 6, Rodrigo Mendes, BYU, 52-0. 7, Antonio Saunders, Georgia, 51-7 3/4. 8, Brandon Atkinson, Ole Miss, 51-6 1/4. 9, Kendrick Johnson, Boise State, 51-2 3/4. 10, Brian Veal, SW Texas State, 51-0 1/4. 11, Alonzo Moore, Wisconsin, 50-11 1/2. 12, Bruce Everett, North Carolina A&T, 50-5 1/2. 13, Leonidas Watson, Oregon, 50-1 3/4. 4x400 - 1, Baylor, 3:03.96. 2, Minnesota, 3:04.48. 3, Arizona State, 3:04.49. 4, Florida, 3:04.69. 5, LSU, 3:04.84. 6, Seton Hall, 3:06.84. 7, Northern Iowa, 3:07.71. 8, TCU, 3:09.06. 9, Nebraska, 3:09.99. 10, Ole Miss, 3:10.25. 11, Oregon, 4:18.28. WOMEN'S RESULTS Team Scores - 1, LSU, 52. 2, Florida, 51. 3, Nebarska, 45 1/2. 4, Tennessee, 43. 5, UCLA, 40. 6, Georgia, 36. 7, Stanford, 30. 7, Texas, 30. 9, Providence, 20. 10, South Carolina, 19. 10, Miami, 19. 10, Arkansas, 19. 13, Penn State, 14. 13, Northern Arizona, 14. 13, North Carolina, 14. 16, Cal Poly, 13. 16, Kansas State, 13. 18, Georgetown, 12. 19, BYU, 11. 19, Michigan, 11. Heptathlon - 1, Hyleas Fountain, Georgia, 4,421. 2, Jackie Johnson, ASU, 4,263. 3, Brooke Meredith, Cal, 4,189. 4, JaNelle Wright, Kansas State, 4,173. 5, Chelsea Hammond, South Carolina, 4,144. 6, Josie Hahn, Vanderbilt, 4,064. 7, Ashley Selig, Nebraska, 4,054. 8, Jordan Willmann, Baylor, 4,033. 9, Koya Webb, Wichita State, 3,968. 10, Sara Jane Baker, Nebraska, 3,848. 11, Ryanne Dupree, Texas-San Antonio, 3,825. 12, Diana Pickler, WSU, 3,825. 13, Annmarie Turpin, UC Irvine, 3,779. 14, Maranda Brownson, Nevada, 3,751. 15, Alexis Magaffagan, South Florida, 3,591. 16, Abby Andrus, Oregon, 3,075. -
Randal Tyson Track Center (200-meter Banked Track)
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Ark.
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Players Mentioned
