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Hank Hager
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Friday, May 28, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
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Regional dispute
The regional qualifying tournament has been around for two years and gets mixed reviews
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By Jon Roetman
Sports Reporter
Include an extra meet in the season schedule, or give athletes
more time to train?
Allow more athletes a chance to compete for a national title,
or leave the system alone?
These questions were posed in the late 1990s when the U.S.
Track Coaches Association brought up the idea of expanding
competition opportunities at the NCAA Championship meet.
While track and field had more participants than any other
Division I NCAA sport, the national championship meet was
capped at 756 participants; 378 for both men and women.
The Division I Championship Cabinet agreed that more op
portunities to compete for a national title were necessary, but a
simple increase in the championship meet cap wasn't enough.
The cabinet insisted that a qualifying system be devised that
would send the most deserving athletes to the final meet of the
season.
After much debate between coaches and the NCAA Track and
Field Committee, the result was a regional qualifying system
that was approved by the NCAA in 2000 and put into use for
the first time last year. The national meet cap was raised to
1,088 (544 men and 544 women) and the country was split
into four regions (West, Midwest, Mideast and East), with each
region hosting a qualifying meet for the right to go to nation
als.
Regional qualifying marks and times were implemented dur
ing the regular season to determine which athletes would be
eligible to compete. Once the field was set, the top five finishers
in each event from each region, would advance to nationals. If
20 athletes per event didn't equate to enough participants to
fill the national meet cap, at-large candidates would be added
from a descending-order list of athletes who entered the re
gional meet with a high rank but failed to crack the top five
during competition.
Mark Bockelman, assistant director of championships for the
NCAA, said the highly competitive regional meets that took
place for the first time last season were good for track and field.
"If you feature four meets all around the country, all at the
same time, it will bring a good amount of attention to track
and field," Bockelman said. "The product on the field of the
four regional sites last year produced good, competitive track
meets. Then we had an outstanding championship meet as
Turn to REGIONAL, page 9
UO men, women Northridge-bound for regionals
The Ducks field athletes lead the way as seven
Oregon women rank in the top 10 heading into
the NCAA West Regional Qualifier today
By Alex Tam
Sports Reporter
The road back to national prominence begins for the Ore
gon women's track and field team at the NCAA West Regional
Qualifier today in Northridge, Calif.
The two-day competition, held at the Matador Track and
Field Complex, is one of four regional meets this weekend. The
top five finishers from each regional event will earn an auto
matic bid to the NCAA Championships, which start June 9 in
Austin, Texas.
The field events are expected to net the
WOfVtEH’S Duck women the best scores.
TRACK Kirsten Larwin enters the pole vault
_ranked fourth in the West after earning a
personal record of 13 feet, 6 1/4 inches
at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships two weeks ago.
Larwin, a senior from Eugene, was hobbled by a foot injury at
this time last year, but is now in full health and hopes to end
her year on a high note.
"I'll do my best to try to shoot for that top five," Larwin said.
"It's one more meet to prepare and it's more time to get that
much better. Last year at this meet, I knew I wasn't going to do
well."
Larwin said she hopes her career best is good enough any
way for an NCAA at-large bid. After the regional meets are over,
the NCAA committee will select five to eight athletes, who did
not finish in the top five, to be invited to the national champi
onships based on season bests.
Fellow Oregon pole-vaulter Emily Enders is on the cusp of
earning an automatic invite in her first year competing at the
collegiate level. Enders, a freshman from Snohomish, Wash,, is
rated sixth after also achieving a personal best at the Pac-10
Championships with a mark of 13-2 1/4.
One of the most anticipated events going into regionals is a
Lauren Wimer Senior Photographer
Rachael Kriz enters the high jump at the NCAA West Regional Qualifier
in Northridge, Calif., with a top mark of 5-8.
rematch of Southern California's Inga Stasiulionyte and Ore
gon's Sarah Malone in the javelin throw. The two are ranked
first and second in the region, respectively, and have had epic
battles, the most recent coming two weeks ago at Pac- 10s.
Malone, who is ranked third nationally, led the event after
the first two rounds before Stasiulionyte, the 2001 NCAA
Javelin champion, took over first place after three throws with a
mark of 177-4. The USC senior never relinquished the lead and
ended up winning her fourth straight Pac-10 javelin title.
Other Oregon field event hopefuls include Bree Fuqua in the
shot put (sixth, 52-5 1/2) and the discus (14th, 164-0 1/2),
Clarice Hayward-Lee in the triple jump (11th, 40-8 3/4) and
Rachael Kriz in the high jump (16th, 5-8).
On the track, the Ducks have three athletes ranked in the top
Turn to WOMEN, page 8
Senior Brandon Holliday is one of several Oregon
athletes who will attempt to qualify for nationals
with a top-five finish at the West Regional Qualifier
By Jon Roetman
Sports Reporter
It's time to put up or shut up for several members of the Ore
gon men's track and field team.
With competition in the NCAA West Regional Qualifier begin
ning today in Northridge, Calif., the chance has arrived for a Duck
athlete to earn a ticket to the National Championships with a top
five finish in his respective event.
If an athlete fails to crack the top five, however, this sunny week
end in California could mark the end of the 2004 season.
Senior Brandon Holliday, a 2003 NCAA
Qualifier in the 400-meter hurdles, is one
such athlete who faces a do-or-die sce
nario. I le enters the meet with the fourth
best time in the West (50.52 seconds), but
only ranks 14th nationally. If he fails to
finish in the top five this weekend, he is likely too far down the
descending-order list to receive an at-large bid.
Ifie Beaverton native, who is coming off a fourth-place finish at
the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, said while his Oregon
career has had some bright moments, it wouldn't be complete
without another trip to nationals.
"I'd hate for my career to end at regionals," I lolliday said. "I
want to go to nationals. One of my goals is still to be All-Ameri
can, and in order to do that, I need to crack the top five. If I didn't
make the top five, it wouldn't have been a terrible career, but it
wouldn't be a good way to end it. I would be crushed if I didn't
go to nationals this year."
Another Oregon athlete facing similar circumstances is
Leonidas Watson. The junior transfer from St. Louis Community
College will compete in the long jump and the triple jump for
Oregon, but has some work to do in order to qualify for the latter.
Watson ranks fourth in the West in the long jump
Turn to MEN, page 8
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