By Jack Pfeifer
photos by Kim Spir
EUGENE, Ore. – The University of Oregon may be here in the chilly, rainy Pacific Northwest, but its star-studded track team has athletes from all over the country, including fresh faces from New Jersey and New York. They will be among the youngsters trying to lead the Ducks to challenge for the outdoor NCAA Division I team championships beginning Thursday here at the West Regional meet at Hayward Field.
This year the Division I championships have two Regional meets. The East Regional will also be held over the next three days, in Bloomington, Ind. Each meet will advance 12 competitors in each event to the Finals, to be held two weeks from now at Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa.
In Divisions II and III, the national meets are this Thursday through Saturday. NYU, CCNY and Lehman will all be represented in Div. III, to be held in Delaware, Ohio, while a number of Pennsylvania schools, led by Shippensburg’s Neely Spence, will compete Div. II, at Cal State/Stanislaus, in Turlock, Calif.
Div. I
West Regional
The Oregon women’s team has two runners from New York and two from New Jersey, all freshmen, competing this week at Regionals. One of them, English Gardner (Eastern, Voorhees, N.J.), burst onto the national scene two weeks ago at the Pac-10 Championships, winning the 100 in an upset in the stunning time of 11.03, setting an American Junior (under age 20) record. Gardner has withdrawn from the 200, in which she had also qualified, to allow her to concentrate on the 100 as well as the 4x1, which she anchors for the Ducks.
The other Garden Stater is Lanie Thompson (Voorhees, High Bridge), a redshirt freshman who became a steeplechaser this spring, running an excellent 10:12.09 in her debut. “Lanie’s great,” her senior teammate and fellow steeplechaser, Claire Michel, said. “There are really big things to come for her. She’s still pretty new to the steeple, but she has done phenomenally well. I think she definitely has the potential to qualify.”
The Empire Staters are Phyllis Francis (McAuley, Brooklyn) and Megan Patrignelli (Monroe-Woodbury). Francis has run 2:08 in the 800 this spring and is also scheduled to run third leg on the Ducks’ 4x4. She ran 51.99 for her carry when the Ducks won the conference title two weeks ago in Tucson. Patrignelli has run 4:26 this spring in the 1,500.
Athletes with Eastern roots will also be competing here in Eugene this week for such Western teams as USC, UCLA, Arizona, Texas and Portland State.
USC Nia Ali (Pleasantville, N.J., and West Catholic, Philadelphia) currently leads the country in the 100 hurdles (12.74) and has also cleared 6-1 ¼ in the high jump. Dalilah Muhammad (Cardozo, Queens) was conference runnerup in the 400 hurdles, which she has run in 56.80 this season. Hungarian Viktor Fajoyomi will be highjumping for the Trojans. His brother David does the same for St. Francis of Brooklyn.
UCLA Lindsay Rowe (Cardozo), now a senior for the Bruins, is in the 100 hurdles. She ran 13.41 for 5th place at Pac-10. Ashlea McLaughlin (Uniondale), fellow senior, is in the 400 (52.86) and 4x4. The Bruins’ men’s squad also has two New Yorkers, pole vaulter Casey DiCesare (Irvington), 17-2 ¾, and hammer thrower Alec Faldermeyer (Minisink Valley). Faldermeyer has has an excellent freshman year, throwing 223-9, the 3rd-longest ever by an American Junior.
Arizona The favorite to win the national title this year in the women’s high jump is Brigetta Barrett, especially after she cleared 6-4 to win the Pac-10. Barrett, a sophomore, was Texas state high school champion for Duncanville H.S., but also was New York state indoor champion, in 2007, when she attended Ketcham H.S., in Dutchess County.
Texas Marielle Hall (Haddonfield, N.J.) will be in the 800 for the Longhorns. She ran 2:07 this year as a freshman.
Portland State The Vikings have sophomore Geronne Black (Robeson, Brooklyn) in the 100 (11.65) and the 4x1 (45.24).
Oregon The Ducks’ men’s squad also has an Eastern flavor, led by Matthew Centrowitz (Broadneck, Md.), a contender for the national championship in the 1,500, and two senior graduate-student transfers, Justin Frick and Steve Finley. Frick is a highjumper who graduated from Princeton last year, Finley a steeplechaser from the University of Virginia. Centrowitz and Finley both won their events to help lead Oregon to the Pac-10 men’s team title, while Frick had a seasonal-best 7-1 ½ to place in his event.
The West Regional is loaded with outstanding teams, led by the reigning outdoor national champions for men and women, Texas A&M.
Every event will be contested at the Regional level except the multi-events. For the first time, that also includes the 10,000 meters, in which the top 12 finishers from each Regional will advance to the NCAA finals. There will be two rounds of competition in the sprints, hurdles and middle distances, one round in the steeple and 5k. In the field events, competition will end once the field has been reduced to 12.
East Regional
New York schools have plenty of qualifiers this weekend, including Columbia (10), Iona (5), Albany (6), Stony Brook (4), Fordham (1), Manhattan (2), Army (1), Binghamton (3), St. Francis (1) and LIU (1).
Columbia is led by the sprinter Sharay Hale, among the national leaders in the 400 (52.40) as well as anchor of the Lions’ 4x4. Iona has the distance runner Leonard Korir, surprise winner of the indoor 5,000 championship this winter and now a threat in the outdoor 10 (27:29.40).
NYC-area competitors -- most of them familiar Armory veterans -- from New Jersey and New York are on teams throughout the East and South. The women’s 1,500 in the East Regional is a good example, where New Yorkers Brittany Sheffey (Tennessee), Kerri Gallagher (Fordham), Jillian King (Boston College), Emily Lipari (Villanova) and Lillian Greibesland (North Carolina State) are all in the field, along with Sheila Reid of Villanova, Jackie Drouin of Columbia, Heidi Gregson of Iona, and Lucy Van Dalen and Olivia Burne of Stony Brook.
In the indoor NCAA championships in March, Reid and the freshman Lipari helped Villanova to the title in the DMR, only to have Reid later lose the 3,000 to Oregon’s sophomore star, Jordan Hasay. Hasay also won the indoor mile, after getting outkicked in the DMR by Reid.
Outdoors, Hasay and Reid have both decided to try the 15/5000 double. In this week’s Regionals, those two events are just 90 minutes apart. In next month’s finals, they are on separate days. Hasay is key to Oregon’s attempt to win its first outdoor team title in 25 years, although the Ducks have managed to win the past two indoor championships.
NYC natives in the East Regional include:
Bethune-Cookman Kemar Clarke (South Shore, Brooklyn) 14.10 HH
LSU Walter and Karen Henning (St. Anthony’s, LI), hammer (225-4, 183-2), Riker Hylton (Essex County Clg) 45.93 400/4x4, Tristan Walker (South Shore) 20.73 200/4x1, Charlene Lipsey (Hempstead) 2:05.05 800, Jen Clayton (Suffern) 20-6 1/4w LJ
Kentucky Darryl Bradshaw (Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn) 14.15 HH, Sharif Webb (Don Bosco Prep, NJ) 1:47.19 800
Penn Darryl Oliver (Brooklyn Tech) 1:49.44 800
Duke Ryan McDermott (Chaminade) 8:45.42 steeplechase, Devotia Moore (Townsend Harris) 2:06.55 800
UNC Clayton Parros (Seton Hall Prep) 45.89 400, Charles Cox (Monmouth Regional) 46.28 400, Zoey Russell (F. Douglass Acad, NYC) 53.93 400, Elizabeth Mott (New Rochelle) 54.03 400
Div. II
Shippensburg’s Spence (15:33) hopes to defend her 5k championship, though it won’t be easy against such challengers as Monica Kinney of Grand Valley State (15:46) and Sarah Porter of Western Washington (15:57).
A number of Eastern schools have representatives in the meet, including Seton Hill, East Stroudsburg, Southern Connecticut, Lock Haven, American International, IUP, Kutztown, West Chester, Virginia State, U Mass/Lowell, New Haven, Slippery Rock and Millersville.
Div. III
NYU will be represented by Matt Turlip, seeded No. 2 in the 1,500 (3:45.76) to Nick Guarino of Fredonia (3:45.56); Sebastian Schwelm (10k), and Dan McKinney (400). Paul Dedewo is in the 400 for CCNY, Tobi Alli in the women’s 100 for Lehman.
Other top regional competitors include Eric Woodruff of Moravian, the #1 seed in the 200 (20.97); Kyle Gilroy of TCNJ in the hurdles (14.34/52.71); Kyle Devins, #2 in the LJ; Ja’Mar Watson of RPI, #2 in the men’s hammer; Craig Van Leeuwen of Ramapo, the top seed in the pole vault; Emma DeWart, top seed in the heptathlon, and Jill Shaner of Richard Stockton College, #1 in the javelin.