{"id":342,"date":"2010-06-11T07:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=342"},"modified":"2010-06-11T07:02:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T14:02:00","slug":"ncaa-championships-day-three-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=342","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Championships \u2013 Day Three Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/sports\/track-and-field-ncaa\/image\/4973293?term=brianne+thiesen\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/view2.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/image\/4973293\/track-and-field-ncaa\/track-and-field-ncaa.jpg?w=380\" border=\"0\"  title=\"Track and Field: NCAA Championships\"  oncontextmenu=\"return false;\" ondrag=\"return false;\" onmousedown=\"return false;\" alt=\"Jun 11, 2009; Fayetteville, AR; Brianne Thiesen of Oregon cleared 5-8 3\/4 (1.75m) for 916 points in the heptathlon high jump in the NCAA Track and Field Championships at John McDonnell Field. Photo via Newscom\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear:left;height:0px;overflow: hidden;\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/\/JavaScripts\/OTIjs.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The second day of semi finals went off without a hitch \u2013 though the men looked a bit sluggish in their qualifying heats of the 200. Still, Texas A&amp;M moved two men into the final \u2013 Curtis Mitchell &amp; Gerald Phiri \u2013 and Mitchell and Rondell Sorrillo (Kentucky) appear to be the men to beat at this point. The first sprint event without a Florida Gator in the final. The Aggie women lead the way in their qualifying as Porscha Lucas dropped a sizzling 22.49 in her heat to take over the collegiate lead. Teammate Jeneba Tarmoh lead the other qualifiers into the final. LSU also moved two into the final, but Samantha Henry &amp; Takeia Pinckney were only able to garner the final two spots \u2013 and neither looked sharp \u2013 leading me to believe that at this point it is clearly going to be between the Aggies and the Ducks for the team title. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking of the Ducks, the Oregon women moved two into the 1500 final \u2013 Hasay &amp; Kosinsky \u2013 and just missed out on a third as Buckman was the next best time. Double points here could give them a slight edge in the team race. Hard to call a favorite for the final as the top athletes were clearly conserving, but Follett still looks like a good call to me. The Duck men also helped their cause in the 1500, moving three into the final \u2013 Wheating, Acosta &amp; Centrowitz \u2013 keeping themselves on track in the team race. <\/p>\n<p>Alas the hurdles, 100H &amp; 110H are lacking anyone of stature that will matter in the team race, but Ronnie Ash showed himself to clearly be the class of the men\u2019s field as he cruised to a 13.32 in his semi. Likewise Queen Harrison (12.68) &amp; Ti\u2019erra Brown (12.74) were clearly the class of the women\u2019s event and are headed towards two showdowns in the finals. <\/p>\n<p>And speaking of the class of the field, Oregon is dominating the multi events in this meet. Ashton Eaton set a PR for the first day with a huge score of 4500 to lead all qualifiers by over 250 points. At his current pace he could well set a new CR before the end of the day tomorrow. Meanwhile teammate Brianne Thiesen completed her heptathlon with a PR 6094 points \u2013 412 ahead of runner up Kiani Profit of Maryland. <\/p>\n<p>Otherwise 4&#215;4 qualifying went as expected with all the anticipated suspects making it through \u2013 the Florida men and Texas A&amp;M women looking particularly impressive.<\/p>\n<p>There were four field event finals, with only the men\u2019s javelin really affecting the team hunt. Sam Humphrey\u2019s (Tx A&amp;M) finished in 4th here which was off of most projections \u2013 and he really needed to finish higher to keep the Aggies close enough to the Ducks and Gators. The tile went to Craig Kinsley (Brown) in what most would consider an upset. Ditto the pole vault win of Jordan Scott (Kan) in a competition marred rain. Patricia Mamona (Clemson) in the triple jump and Nikola Lamnicka (Georgia) in the Hammer, rounded out the days field event winners.<\/p>\n<p>Now with the qualifying behind us, its two days of finals. The easy call is the decathlon, where Eaton should guarantee the Ducks 10 points and a big start to their title chase. We also have team hopes riding in the balance on the field today. In the men\u2019s long jump Ashton Eaton will be trying to get points for Oregon after finishing up his duties in the decathlon. A daunting task under any conditions, but he will have to do so against triple jump champion Christian Taylor of rival Florida and Texas footballer Marquis Goodwin. Krytonite finally hits Eaton in the form of Taylor and fatigue as Taylor and Goodwin should duel it out here with Taylor prevailing and keeping Gator title hopes alive. <\/p>\n<p>Those hopes could be aided with a high finish by Gator shot putter Kemel Mesic. The individual title should go to Ryan Whiting (AzSt) as he wins the shot to go along with the Discus title he picked up on Wednesday. Whiting is the star of this event at the collegiate level and is threatening to become one of the world\u2019s best. He nails this down early with Mesic looking for a top three finish to go along with Florida points in the LJ, 100 &amp; 400. <\/p>\n<p>And yes, I expect Eaton to finally hit Krytonite, but not until after he crushes the field in the decathlon. And on his current pace he could give Tree Hardee\u2019s collegiate record (8465) a scare in the process. And if Eaton is trying to be Superman today, then Blessing Okgabare will be doing her Supergirl impression as she will be attempting to win titles in the 100 and here in the long jump. She should win this event as she has been the best jumper all season and her speed is sharp. Behind her look for Jamesha Youngblood (Or) and Vashti Thomas (Tx A&amp;M) to battle it out for valuable team points.<\/p>\n<p>on the track the 400 hurdles feature two of the meet\u2019s premier match ups. The men\u2019s event will pit two time defending champ Jesjua Anderson (WaSt) against yearly leader Johnny Dutch (S Car). Both have looked good of late, and their qualifying times were only hundredths of a second apart. Dutch is #4 all time college off of his performance at Regionals, but I\u2019ve got to go with Anderson. He\u2019s always come up big when he\u2019s needed to from high school to now (former HS record holder). He\u2019s a two time champion in this event, and he\u2019s just stronger than everyone else at this level in the stretch. Dutch will give him a good race, but Anderson pulls it out in the end. <\/p>\n<p>Another tough call for the women. Maybe tougher because neither woman has a storied history as both have really emerged this year. I picked Harrison early on, but lately have moved to Brown \u2013 mostly off the strength of how she\u2019s run the 4&#215;4. Harrison seems a bit quicker, Brown a bit stronger. So I\u2019m giving Brown the nod here. <\/p>\n<p>Next will come the 100 meters. And while this event can often come down to a lean and a photo, I think both have clear winners. Jeff Demps (Fl) has been the man in this event all season long and looked easy in his semi. Marcus Rowland (Aub) and Rondell Sorrillo (Ken) will provide the toughest competition, but look for Demps to have a Mo Greene like surge mid race and put it away while fueling Florida\u2019s title hopes. Ditto Blessing Okagbare (UTEP) who seems to be just a cut above the others with her long finishing strides. The one caveat here is if Jeneba Tarmoh, who suddenly got hot at Regionals, can nail her start. If she does look for a lean and a photo at the tape.<\/p>\n<p>With Demps winning the 100 the focus will immediately move to the 800 where Andrew Wheating will be looking to match points for Oregon. Wheating is the defending NCAA champion, having won a very close race with a .06 victory in 1:46.21 last year \u2013 this year\u2019s race could end up being just as close. Virginia\u2019s Robbie Andrews moved himself into the title hunt with a strong looking 1:45.54 win in his semi \u2013 dangerously close to Wheating\u2019s PR of 1:45.03. Wheating needs a win here to keep Oregon on pace with Florida, while Andrews will be looking to add the outdoor title to the indoor title he won earlier this winter. I\u2019ve been calling for a Wheating win here all spring, and will stick with it, with Wheating\u2019s height giving him an advantage at the lean \u2013 but I won\u2019t be surprised if Andrews pulls it off. The women\u2019s qualifying went pretty much to form, and I still like Tennessee\u2019s Phoebe Wright for the title. Don\u2019t expect LaTavia Thomas (LSU) to give up the title without a fight \u2013 especially with the Tiger\u2019s not performing up to par and desperately needing big points from her. Ditto for Oregon\u2019s Anne Kesselring who will be trying to keep the Ducks in the title race against the Aggies of A&amp;M.<\/p>\n<p>The title races will heat up after the men\u2019s steeplechase (I\u2019m still going with BYU\u2019s Nelson here) with two very hot 400 meter finals. The men\u2019s race is very deep with several talented young men toeing the line. Calvin Smith (Fl), Demetrius Pinder (Tx A&amp;M) and Tabarie Henry (Tx A&amp;M) all need to come up big here for their teams. Joey Hughes (USC), Kirani James (Ala) and Tavaris Tate (MsSt) are all capable of winning the thing. Look for Tate and Hughes out early with the others chasing in the stretch. Watch the 300 mark. If the field let\u2019s Tate get too far ahead, it\u2019s a wrap. If any of the strong finishers is smart and stays close through 300 they can win it \u2013 especially James or Smith. My guess is that Tate heads out and says \u201ccatch me if you can\u201d, and no one does. Keep an eye on the Florida and Texas A&amp;M points behind him and the ground eating strides of Kirani James up the final stretch.<\/p>\n<p>The women face a similar situation with Keshia Baker (Or) and Jessica Beard (Tx A&amp;M) carrying team hopes along with individual. And Joanna Atkins (Aub) &amp; Francena McCorory looking to nail down a national title. McCorory stunned indoors with a blazing 50.54 title run, while more recently Baker sizzled 50.76 to take the Pac10 title outdoors. Atkins won the title last year in 50.39 with Beard 2nd (50.56), McCorory 3rd (50.58) and Baker 5th (51.29) in tow \u2013 so there is history with these women. They all PR\u2019d at this meet last year and I suspect they will again. This year I give the edge to Baker. She seems to be a more mature sprinter this time around and running at home she may find a bit of energy rounding the Bowerman curve that the others may not enjoy. The fight up the home straight will be fierce, however, as McCorory and Atkins looked hungry in the semis and Beard and Baker\u2019s teams are in the title hunt. Should be one of the best races of the meet.<\/p>\n<p>The meet will close the same as yesterday \u2013 with Sam Chalenga (Lilberty) looking to win another title. He looked ridiculously easy as he literally put it in cruise control and ran away from the field in winning the 10000 last night. He seriously looked like he was out for a stroll while everyone behind him was racing. I\u2019ve had Northern Arizona\u2019s David McNeill here all year and I\u2019ll stick with it, but man he\u2019s gonna have to get on his horse and go to keep Chalenga off the top of the podium.<\/p>\n<p>It should be one exciting afternoon\/evening of track and field. By the end of today we\u2019ll be able to take a serious look at the team battles and see where things sit heading into tomorrow\u2019s final day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second day of semi finals went off without a hitch \u2013 though the men looked a bit sluggish in their qualifying heats of the 200. Still, Texas A&amp;M moved two men into the final \u2013 Curtis Mitchell &amp; Gerald Phiri \u2013 and Mitchell and Rondell Sorrillo (Kentucky) appear to be the men to beat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-5w","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}