Huskies sweep Cougars decisively in The Dual...

Western Washington transfer Frank Catelli won both the
shot put and discus to help Washington win The Duel
(photo courtesy University of Washington)

SEATTLE--At a high school dual track meet many moons ago, I once overheard an obnoxious parent yell towards the end of the meet to nobody in particular, “Stick around, because (name of school deleted) is about to serve ‘Hundy-Burgers’ after the meet!”

That obscure moment in forty three years of involvement in the sport flashed after the University of Washington scored a school record 113-50 in the annual Dual Meet against Washington State Saturday, and a 99-64 win over the Cougars in the women’s meet, missing 100 points by one, and the opportunity to serve a double Hundy Burger (Incidentally, I had to ask someone what a Hundy Burger was—it was explained that a Hundy Burger is when a team scores 100 points or more in a dual meet).

The combined 212 points for the men and women are the most in school history, making a case for today being the most impressive overall showing for the Huskies in the long history of the Dual. Washington’s only previous title sweeps came in 1996 and 1997. The teams had split the past four years, with the Husky men winning for the third-straight year now, and the women getting their first victory over the Cougars since 2012.

Washington won 13 of 19 women’s events, and 12 of 19 men’s events.  Sub-4 minute miler Izaic Yorks was one of three double event winners, winning the 1500 (3:49.99) and the 800 in an epic stretch run against WSU All-American Jesse Jorgensen (1:48.52).

The other two double event winners for Washington were Frank Catelli (58-5.75/17.82m and 179-1/54.58m) and Gina Flint (46-9.5/14.26m and 167-6/51.06m) in the shot put and discus.

Pole vaulters Jax Thoirs (18-1.75/5.53m) and Kristina Owsinski  (13-9.75/4.33m) both broke dual meet records with their victories, as each event lived up to the pre-meet hype.

Washington State’s Bria’una Watley broke a 28-year old meet record in the women’s 200, running 23.35, to eliminate Pam Qualls’ 23.81 mark.

“Before my race I kept saying to myself that I needed to run a good time for regionals and that I wanted to run at least at 23.8,” Watley said. “During the start of the race I kept my drive face and I knew I had to run the turn extremely hard so (UW’s) Haley Jacobson wouldn’t catch up to me. After the turn, I just told myself to keep pushing and not to give up. After the race I though I ran 23.8 but Coach Yogi (Teevens) told me it was 23.35. I was so happy I started crying.”

Afterwards, UW coach Greg Metcalf matter-of-factly said, “It was just a great day for both teams. I’m sitting here trying to think where we didn’t perform well? And there were not a lot of those.”

New WSU coach Wayne Phipps, who may have gotten a rude awakening into the world of one of college track & field’s oldest rivalries, said, “I was disappointed in the team scores.”  

“I knew going in it was going to be a difficult challenge on the men’s side as we were missing so many key guys,” alluding to Drew Jordan, who ran instead at Stanford, where he ran a season best in the 5000 of 13:56.39 at the Payton Jordan Invitational, and CJ Allen, the reigning Pac-12 400 hurdles champ, who was seen at Husky Track sporting a boot on his injured foot.

The Huskies were missing a Pac-12 champion, as Diamara Planell Cruz, last year’s Pac-12 pole vault champ who was nursing an injured foot, and won’t compete until the conference championship at UCLA in two weeks.

Courtesy of the Pac-12 Networks, here are video highlights of the meet:

Washington’s release is available here, while Washington State’s release is available here.

The complete results are available here.

NOTE:  The University of Washington and Washington State University contributed to this report.