Another day, another record for Katie Flood & the Huskies...
For the third straight meet, the sophomore from Des Moines, Iowa had a hand in a University of Washington school record and a NCAA leading time, as a 4:28.8 1600 meter leg by Flood led to the Huskies setting a new meet, Dempsey Indoor Facility, and school record, not to mention a national leading mark in the distance medley relay as the team of Chelsea Orr, Jordan Carlson, Baylee Mires, and Flood took the victory in 10:55.01 (photo of from left--Carlson, Mires, Orr & Flood by Paul Merca).
Orr, the sophomore from Sammamish's Eastlake HS, kept the Huskies in contention, as Bellingham's Becca Friday led Oregon through the first exchange in 3:20 on the 1200 leg, with Orr in third as she handed off to senior Jordan Carlson from Spokane.
Carlson appeared out of contention as Oregon, Cal and Stanford's 400 meter runners pulled away on the second leg.
In the 800 leg, fellow Spokane native Baylee Mires began chipping away, running what she admitted was a very fast first 400, a time she said was around 60 seconds. Though she started to fade a bit in the final 400, she gave the baton to Flood in fifth, as Mires was passed by runners from BYU and Stanford at the exchange..
Flood received the stick 30 meters down, as Cal's Deborah Maier took the lead with Oregon's Anne Kesselring, the NCAA 800 champ close behind.
Within a span of 500 meters, Flood moved the Huskies to fourth and set her sights on Maier and Kesselring, along with BYU anchor Katie Palmer.
With 600 to go, Flood had positioned the Huskies into second; however, Palmer and Kesselring, the 800 meter specialists, had the speed advantage over Flood if it came down to a 200-meter foot race.
With 250 to go Flood pounced to the front, opening up a gap of two steps over Maier and Kesselring. Kesselring jumped back to the front with 150 to go, but Flood retaliated with a final spurt down the homestretch to give Washington the victory over its Northwest rival 10:55.01 to 10:55.78,
Cal finished in third in 10:56.29, and BYU was fourth in 11:01.35, as the first five teams were under the old meet record, and the top four were under the NCAA automatic standard of 11:03.50.
Flood said patience was the key to the victory, as she demonstrated in her leg by not trying to get all of the deficit back early.
"I got excited since Baylee was coming in so hard. But after that I just tried to maintain, and keep moving up, and stay calm. I think it's always easier to battle like that when you have a team behind you that just worked their butts off and ran so hard, so when you cross the line you're not crossing for yourself, it's a lot easier to find that motivation."
Carlson, the lone upperclassman of the Husky foursome, could hardly contain her exuberance at her three teammates, stating that she'd waited four years for the opportunity to run with an outstanding group in the DMR.
Courtesy of media partner RunnerSpace.com, here is video of the DMR race:
In other events, Washington State's Stephan Scott-Ellis, the reigning Pac-10 triple jump champ, took the men's long jump with a second round leap of 25-5 1/4 (7.75m).
Afterwards, he predicted that he would try to go 54 feet in Saturday's triple jump competition.
"When the ASU jumper (second place Chris Benard) opened up with a 25-1, that hyped me up," Scott-Ellis said. "On my second jump I got great support from the crowd with the clapping and that just all together helped me to jump far with that semi-home meet feel."
Washington freshman JJ Julifs tied for third in the pole vault with a leap of 17-1 3/4 (5.23m) as UCLA's Michael Woepse took the victory at 17-7 3/4 (5.38m).
Michael Bolligar, a junior from Peoria, Ariz., is in second place after the first day of the men's heptathlon with 3,040 points. Bolligar ran the 60m dash in a time of 7.24, long jumped a PR distance of 23-8 1/4 (7.22m) which was the second-best mark on the day, threw the shot put a PR toss of 36-11 1/2 (11.26m), and cleared 6-7 (2.01m) in the high jump. Dakotah Keys of Oregon leads the heptathlon with 3,177 points.
Arizona State leads both the men's and women's team competition at the break, while Washington's s squads sit in fourth. The Washington State women are in tenth, and the men's team is in seventh.
Complete results from day one of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships are available here.
NOTE: The MPSF, the University of Washington, and Washington State University contributed to this report.
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