Oregon racked up 14 event wins on Saturday as both the men’s and women’s teams won the Columbia East-West Challenge. The men totaled 158 points, beating out Cornell in second place with 124 points and UCLA in third with 103, while the women scored 213 points to dominate the field by more than 100 points.
Including five event wins on Friday, Oregon had a weekend total of 19 individual wins with three Armory records and a collegiate record.
Seven different Ducks found themselves ranked on Oregon’s all-time indoor record list, including Marcus Chambers, who, after opening his day with a win in the 400-meter, broke the school record in the 200 with a time of 20.78 seconds.
Kyree King, coming off a 60-meter win on Friday, also found himself ranked third on the list after placing second with a time of 21.02.
The women’s 200-meter also ended in record-breaking fashion. In her first 200-meter since the Rio Olympics, Deajah Stevens beat the Armory record with a time of 22.65 seconds, an NCAA-leading mark. She was followed by Hannah Cunliffe in 23.00, narrowly beating out Harvard freshman Gabrielle Thomas by .01 second. Ariana Washington and freshman Makenzie Dunmore placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
Dunmore also participated in the 400-meter as she and fellow Oregon newcomer, senior transfer Elexis Guster, went 1-2. Dunmore’s time of 53.10 seconds is the third-leading time in Oregon indoor history.
In his highly-anticipated season opener, 15-time NCAA Champion Edward Cheserek won the 3,000-meter in 7 minutes, 46.85 seconds, jumping to the top of the NCAA leaderboard. On the women’s side, with a new personal best time of 9 minutes, 16.59 seconds, Maggie Schmaedick won the event, while Frida Berge followed in 9:30.22.
The NCAA-leading times didn’t stop there. Outdoor and indoor title holder Raevyn Rogers won the 800-meter, finishing in 2:01.75 to take the top time. The time was only .03 second off of last year’s world-leading time of 2:01.72 set by Esther Guerrero. Oregon junior Brooke Feldmeier placed third with a time of 2:06.62.
Redshirt senior Samantha Nadel also made her Oregon debut with a win in the mile. The Georgetown transfer crossed the line in 4:37.38, a personal best and the 8th-leading time in school history. She led a squad of Oregon cross country athletes, including senior Alli Cash, who finished in fifth in 4:40.34 just behind Oregon sophomore Lilli Burdon.
The women also fared well in the jumping events. During her first jump as a Duck, freshman Rhesa Foster hit a distance of 20 feet, 9.25 inches to take the long jump. The distance places her at fourth in school history. Portland State transfer Chaquinn Cook won the triple jump with a new personal best distance of 42 feet, .75 inches.
Another Oregon transfer, Damarcus Simpson, already made his presence known as a Duck on Friday when he was the runner-up in the men’s 60-meter. On Saturday, he backed up that performance on his second attempt in the men’s long jump.
With a distance of 26 feet, 3.5 inches, Simpson became the first Duck to jump over 8 meters, establishing himself at the top of Oregon’s all-time indoor record list. For the rest of the competition, no one else came close and Simpson easily beat out the field by almost two feet.
In the weight throw, Madeline Middlebrooks threw a personal record of 61 feet, 1 inch for the fifth-furthest in Oregon history to take the event.
The evening ended with the 4×400 relays. After spending the whole race neck and neck, Oregon’s two women’s teams went 1-2 with times of 3:33.79 and 3:33.87. The men’s team also won their race, finishing in 4:15.
In Seattle, at the UW Invitational, Mitch Modin won the heptathlon with 5374 points, more than 300 points ahead of the second-place finisher, and Ben Milligan placed third overall in the high jump with a height of 7 feet, .5 inches.
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