Kyle Merber, the sophomore at Columbia who at 19 is establishing himself as an important miler, heads to Eugene, Ore., this week for his first NCAA outdoor championships. He won his regional quarterfinal in the 1,500, in a tactical race, to become 1 of 24 runners left in the event.
The NCAA Division I meet will be held Wednesday through Saturday on the University of Oregon campus. A webcast of the meet will be available at ncaa.com. There will also be live telecasts Friday (8 p.m. Eastern) and Saturday (1 p.m.) on CBS. The meet is close to a sellout – 12,000 people, many of them rooting for the hometown Ducks, are expected to fill Hayward Field each day. Temporary bleachers have been set up to handle the overflow.
The host Oregon Ducks are contenders in both team championships, along with Texas A&M – defending champions for both men and women – and the Florida men, winners of the indoor team title. Oregon won the women’s indoor team championship.
Oregon features three Easterners on its varied roster – middle-distance runners Matthew Centrowitz, from Maryland, and Andrew Wheating, from Vermont, and distance runner Nicole Blood, from Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Centrowitz and Wheating are two of the milers Merber could face in the final. The men’s 1,500 semifinal is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. Pacific time Thursday. The final is at 10:30 Saturday morning. The Saturday schedule will be held in the morning to accommodate a television schedule geared to the Eastern time zone.
Centrowitz, whose father Matt ran for Power Memorial Academy in New York nearly 40 years ago, is a redshirt sophomore who has never run in an NCAA outdoor final. He has won the Pac-10 Conference 1,500 the last two years and has a best of 3:36, but he has struggled with injuries as well.
Wheating is doubling in the 800 and 1,500. The last person to win both events at the NCAA Championships is Oregon’s Joaquim Cruz, whose double win helped lead Oregon to its last men’s outdoor team championship, 26 years ago in Eugene. Wheating is defending champion in the 800 and was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in that event in Beijing two years ago.
That final could match Wheating, the experienced senior, against Robby Andrews, the freshman at Virginia from Manalapan, N.J. At the NCAA indoor meet in March, Andrews surprised Wheating with a late kick to win by .01. At the Penn Relays a month later, Andrews again caught Wheating from behind, winning the 4x800.
The 800 semis are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, the final two days later. Oregon also has Elijah Greer and Travis Thompson in the 800 and A.J. Acosta in the 1,500.
In addition to Merber, Willy Wood’s Columbia squad has two other qualifiers for the Nationals, sophomore Sharay Hale in the 400 and freshman Caroline McDonough, a surprise qualifier in the 5,000. Hale is 6th-ranked, at 52.45.
Other competitors from college teams in the New York City area are:
St. John’s High jumper Priscilla Frederick (St. Paul VI, Sicklerville, NJ), a contender with a best of 6-0 ½
Stony Brook Twin sisters Holly (5,000) and Lucy (1,500) Van Dalen, from New Zealand
West Point Domonick Sylve(Millikan, Long Beach, Cal) ran a PR 13.67 at Regionals
Princeton Men’s Coach Fred Samara has qualified Kyle Soloff (Morris Hills, NJ) and Donn Cabral (Glastonbury, Conn) in the 5k, Justin Frick in the high jump, and Cabral also in the steeplechase, where his Regional time of 8:35.60 moved him up to #2 on the qualifiers list. Women’s Coach Pete Farrell has distance runners Sarah Cummings, Alex Banfich and Ashley Higginson (Colts Neck, NJ). Higginson is a threat in the steeplechase.
Iona Sophomore Aussie Heidi Gregson is in the 1,500
Seton Hall The Hall has Jernail Hayes in the 400 hurdles along with both its 4x4 teams
Rutgers Javelin thrower Jeremy Pennino, sprinter Bruce Owens, hurdlers Kyle Grady and Aaron Younger, and the all-Garden State 4x4 of Owens (Deptford), Steve Swern (Lenape), Nii-Amon Robertson (Plainfield) and Younger (Delsea)
In all, there are about 50 New York and New Jersey natives competing in the Nationals – about two dozen from each state.
Of the New Yorkers, many are from the metropolitan area and of course Armory regulars, including three CHSAA graduates, six PSAL graduates and eight Long Island residents:
CHSAA Walter Henning (St. Anthony’s), a contender for the hammer championship, attending LSU; Katie DiCamillo (Holy Trinity), 5k for Providence, and Ryan McDermott (Chaminade), steeple for Duke
PSAL Steve Delice (Sheepshead Bay), 400 hurdles for Virginia; Clemore Henry (Transit Tech), TCU 4x4; Lindsay Rowe (Cardozo), 100 hurdles for UCLA; Dalilah Muhammad (Cardozo), 400 hurdles for USC; Nadonnia Rodriques (Boys & Girls), 4x4 for South Carolina, and Nene Kamate (Townsend Harris), George Mason 4x1
Long Island Merber (Half Hollow Hills West), McDermott, DiCamillo, Henning; Charlene Lipsey (Hempstead), LSU 800; Ellen Dougherty (Riverhead), Villanova 1,500; Brittany Sheffey (Bellport), Tennessee 1,500, and Ashlea McLaughlin (Uniondale), UCLA 4x4
NY State Fawn Dorr (Akron, Erie County), Penn State IH and relays; Trisha-Ann Hawthorne (Tarrytown), sprints and relays; Aloddin Fothergill (New Hempstead), UMES 4x1; Matthew Gac (Newark Valley, Tioga County), Buffalo throws; Lance Roller (Cortlandt Manor), Virginia 800; Blake Eaton (Allegany, Cattaraugus County), Penn State shot put; Liz Mott (New Rochelle), UNC 4x4; Nicole Blood (Saratoga Springs), Oregon 5/10; Shelby Greany (Suffern), steeple for Providence; Catherine DeSarle (Carmel), Syracuse distance; John Martinez (North Rockland), NC State steeplechase, and Tiffany Maskulinski (Elma, Erie County), Buffalo PV
There are numerous New Jersey natives on college teams throughout the country, not just at Rutgers. These include Tim Boeni (Brick), LJ for Temple; Kim Standridge (Randolph Twp), 800 for Cornell; Amanda Marino (Jackson Memorial), 5k for Villanova; Charles Cox (Monmouth Regional), 400 for UNC; Shavon Greaves (Lakewood), sprints and relays for Penn State; Cory Nelms (Neptune), highs for Miami; Reggie Dixon (Plainfield), sprints and relays for Hampton; Thomas Keane-Dawes (Camden), Damian Miles (Teaneck) and Akheem Gauntlett (Clark, Roselle), all on the 4x1 for Maryland/Eastern Shore, along with Fothergill, a Jamaican New Yorker; Seton Hall’s 4x4 men’s team of Kamar Ellis (Essex County), Carl Smith (Camden), Chris Cox (Monmouth Regional) and Floridian Antonio Reynolds; Devon Bond (Trenton Central), triple jump for Texas/San Antonio; Kristen Brown (Dwight Morrow), 4x1 for UConn; Bianca Stewart (Columbia, Maplewood), HJ for Georgia Tech; Sadiki White (Allenwood), 800 for LSU; Sean Smith (Scotch Plains), UConn decathlete, and Ogechi Nwaneri (Chatham), sprinter for Virginia Tech.
New Yorker Blood, now a senior at Oregon, is one of the keys to the Ducks’ hopes for the team championship, a title they have won just once before, 25 years ago. Blood ran the first 10,000 of her career three weeks ago, winning the Pac-10 title. She will run the NCAA 10k at 7:15 p.m. Pacific (10:15 Eastern) Wednesday night, then the 5,000 on Friday evening. The Oregon women have the favorite in the heptathlon, Canadian Brianne Theisen; highly ranked 4x1 and 4x4 teams, and contenders in the 400 (Keshia Baker), 800 (Anne Kesselring), 1,500 (Zoe Buckman and Jordan Hasay), horizontal jumps (Jamesha Youngblood) , along with other distance runners complementing Blood (Alex Kosinski, Mattie Bridgmon).
Texas A&M counters with a powerful sprint and hurdle group led by Porscha Lucas, Gabby Mayo, Jessica Beard and Jeneba Tarmoh.
In the men’s competition, Florida is led by sprinters Calvin Smith and Jeffrey Demps and jumper Christian Taylor, A&M by quartermilers Tabarie Henry and Demetrius Pinder and short sprinters Curtis Mitchell and Gerald Phiri, and Oregon by distance runners Wheating, Acosta, Centrowitz, Greer, Michael Maag, Jordan McNamara, Luke Puskedra along with javelin favorite Cyrus Hostetler and decathlon favorite Ashton Eaton.