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Kevin Calame Emerald
With a time of 4:19.88 in the 1,500, distance runner Katie Crabb cracked UO’s top-10.
Women
continued from page 9A
And several athletes who won’t
compete at those two meets will
be representing at-the Mt. Hood
Open in Gresham on Sunday.
All in all, the increasingly con
fident Ducks partake in three
meets on three days, all with the
intent of preparing themselves for
the next steps in their respective
careers.
“It’s another weekend of
preparing for what’s to come,”
head coach Tom Heinonen said.
That, logically, means different
things for different athletes.
Katie Crabb, the Pac-lO’s best
1,500-meter runner (4:19.88), has
her sights set high.
“Hopefully it will be all the
right conditions for an Olympic
Trials qualifying time,” said
Crabb, knowing well that the field
she’ll be a part of Saturday makes
that goal possible.
“I was going through the heat
sheet and I was blown away by
the athletes that are going to be at
this meet... All these women that
are world-class. Those people are
pretty intimidating to run against,
on one hand. But on the other
hand, it’s like you have nothing to
lose, you just go and you hang on
for as long as you can.”
Crabb will be joined at Stanford
by eight throwers and three fellow
middle distance runners, sopho
more Nattalie Wright and fresh
men Errin Gulbrandsen and Eri
Macdonald, who stole the show at
the Oregon Invitational last week
end.
In addition to helping her relay
team PR in the 4x400, Macdonald
used a spectacular kick to not
only catch the seven girls ahead of
her but to pass them all and win
convincingly. She set a PR with a
time of 2:08.62, currently the
fourth-best mark in the confer
ence this season.
Macdonald said she was “hop
ing I could stay with the pack and
hopefully kick at the end. I was
just thinking about catching up as
much as I could.”
“Eri wasn’t a shock,” Heinonen
said. “She just showed what she
can really do in the right setting.
She’s got wheels.”
As do the 11 Duck sprinters
and hurdlers, who join their
jumping and vaulting teammates
in a trip farther south, to the Steve
Scott Invitational on Saturday.
They’ll make Oregon’s first-ever
appearance at the competition,
which is expected to be 600 ath
letes strong.
“The Irvine meet is a ‘Y’all
come’ kind of meet,” Heinonen
said. “We haven’t been to the
meet so we don’t really know
what to expect. [But] we’re really
looking forward it.
“I believe they arrange it all on
the day of the meet, so athletes are
well-matched; it’s designed for
people to run fast.”
One of the meet’s highlights
could likely be the pole vault. The
Ducks’ Niki Reed, the current ath
lete of the week for resetting the
school record with a PR of 13-5
1/4, could face UCLA’s duo of Tra
cy O’Hara and Erica Hoernig, who
respectively rank first (14-7 1/4)
and second (13-5 1/4) in the con
ference.
“[Niki’s] getting me comfortable
with bigger poles,” Heinonen
said. “She’s excited about meeting
the UCLA vaulters this week.”
Larkin will compete at Irvine,
as will several Ducks who are still
in search of Pac-10 qualifying
marks. Hurdler Shannae McNairy
attempts to improve on last week
end’s seasonal best of 14.29. En
dia Abrante and Janette Martin
hope to do the same in the 400,
while high jumper Jenny Brogdon
is also closing in on the confer
ence standard.
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