Water jump takes out UW's Maggie Liebich's bid to win B1G Ten steeple crown...
EUGENE--There is an old but true adage about the steeplechase: the barrier and the water jump remain undefeated.
Such was the case in three of the four men's and women's sections of the steeplechase to end day two of the Big Ten Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus Saturday.
In the first men's section, Michigan's Ian Hill took one of the craziest falls entering the water jump, nearly landing head first into the deep end of the water jump.
The first of the two women's sections saw Sofia Condrun of Rutgers injure herself, and needed a wheelchair to get carted off the track after landing awkwardly, crawling out of the pit to get medical attention.
The last section of the women's steeplechase saw Washington's Maggie Liebich (Paul Merca photo), who before this season, had never run a steeple in her career until coming to the UW after graduating from Princeton.
Liebich, whose debut in the steeple came two weeks ago at the Oregon State High Performance meet in Corvallis, where she ran 10:10.53, was one water jump and one barrier away from pulling off a mild upset by winning the Big Ten title, when she fell into the water, despite having just a hair under a second lead.
Though she came out unscathed, that fall was the opening that defending champion Katelyn Stewart-Barnett needed.
Stewart-Barnett passed a momentarily shocked Liebich to retain her Big Ten title, running 9:42.78 to Liebich's personal best 9:48.84.
The duo had earlier broken away from the pack with nobody within ten seconds of the pair with half a lap to go.
In other finals involving the Huskies, 2024 Pac-12 long jump champ Prestin Artis finished seventh with a best of 24-6.25 (7.47m), well off his season best.
Isaac Briggs got the first conference points of his Husky career, with a seventh-place finish in a time of 8:47.20, just off his PR.
Sofia Cosculluela, who is all but assured a spot in the NCAA championships in the heptathlon, finished tenth in the long jump with a best of 19-8 (5.99m). She also qualified for the finals in Sunday's 100 hurdles, running 13.66.
Barring an injury scratch, Washington's Jami Schlueter, who finished second in the Big Ten decathlon with a score of 7418 points, may find himself on the outside looking when the NCAA field is announced.
As the combined events are only contested at the national championships, this weekend was the last weekend for him to improve upon his season best of 7562 points, set at the Mt. SAC Relays last month.
The British native started the day with a time of 14.47 in the 110 hurdles to take the event victory, then threw the discus 128-7 (39.21m).
In the pole vault, he cleared 14-5.25 (4.40m), then threw the javelin 151-7 (46.20m). Schlueter finished the day running the 1500 in 4:44.63.
In other qualifying races Saturday, freshman Martin Barco and senior Kyle Reinheimer each fought their way into the men's 800 meter final through a difficult qualifying set-up with only the heat winners automatically advancing. Barco and Reinheimer got two of the four time qualifiers, as Barco ran an outdoor season-best 1:47.94, and Reinheimer crossed in 1:48.04.
In the women’s 800-meters, Steph Driscoll turned in her best race as a Dawg, as she rolled to a huge season-best time of 2:04.11 to jump to seventh in school history.
The Huskies' Chloe Foerster, the conference leader in the 800, was pulled out of the qualifying race by the Washington coaching staff as a precaution.
Going into Sunday's final day, Washington has 37 points on the men’s side, in fourth-place, and in 10th-place on the women’s side with 8 points but with many key events still to come.
Sunday will be streamed on B1G+ and media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) for the first part of the day then televised live on Big Ten Network at 12:30 pm.
EASTERN FINISHES EIGHTH IN BOTH THE MEN'S AND WOMEN'S TEAM RACES AT BIG SKY CONFERENCE MEET IN SACRAMENTO...
Eastern Washington finished eighth in the men's and women's team races at the Big Sky Conference championship meet hosted by Sacramento State University at Hornet Stadium.
The women scored 34 points while the men finished with 33.5 points, as both Northern Arizona teams scored over 200 points to win yet another set of Big Sky titles.
The Eagles were led Saturday by third place finishes from Maddy Shekhawat in the men's 110 hurdles, as he ran 14.10.
Eastern also got third place finishes from Owen Higgins, who ran a personal best 1:49.86 in the men's 800 meter finals, and from Sydney Thweatt in the 400 hurdles. The senior ran 59.22 in what could be her final race in an Eagle uniform, pending the announcement of regional first round qualifiers next week.
NOTE: The Big Ten and the Big Sky Conference, and the sports information offices of Washington and Eastern Washington contributed to this report.
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