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Track and Field at 2019 Pac 12 (Outdoor) Championships (Tucson, Multis 5/4-5, rest 5/11-12)

AztecBuff

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I will probably add more to this original post as I have the time, but a cubuffs.com preview is now out for the Multi-Event competitions (Decathlon for the men and heptathlon for the women) for the Pac 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships, with I assume Tucson weather necessitating a relatively late start (5:00 & 5:30) for both.

As noted in the thread title, all the other (individual) track and field events will be contested next weekend.

Best of luck to the 5 Buffs competing at Pac 12's this weekend, as well as the throwers at the Air Force meet! (I assume the later are attempting to improve their season bests to get in better flights (is that what they're called?) next weekend.)

GO BUFFS!!!!!!!


Multi-events preview -


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/2/track-and-field-five-enter-pac-12-multi-championships.aspx

"
BOULDER – The University of Colorado track and field program sends five individuals in the Pac-12 Championships heptathlon and decathlon this weekend in Tucson.

Three senior women will compete in their final Pac-12 Championships when Michaela Wenning, Maja Wichhart-Donzo and Drianna Mustin begin the heptathlon Saturday at 5 p.m (PT). Freshman Josh Farmer will compete in his first Pac-12 Championships in the decathlon which begins at 5:30 p.m. (PT) alongside Wyatt Rhoads.

Wenning and Wichart-Donzo are the 14th and 17th-ranked heptathletes in the nation right now with the top-24 heading straight to the NCAA National Championships. The duo both to remain in the standings and currently have a 230-point lead on 24th place after both had performance best performances at the Bryan Clay Invitational.
...

Colorado will also send throwers to Air Force this weekend at the Air Force Twilight Open. Tyler Sconce will compete in the shot put, discus and hammer throw, while Brock Knechtel and Caleb Penner will both throw the hammer and discus. Henry Carlson will also compete in the discus and javelin. For the women, Mariah Walker will toss the shot and discus, while Elisa Grandemange will compete in the hammer and javelin.
"
______________________________________________________________

Pac 12 Championships Homepage - https://pac-12.com/track-field/championships

Overall schedule - http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/trackfield/pdf/2019/2019-TF-Champs-Schedule.pdf

Entries -
Multi Events -
http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/trackfield/pdf/2019/19_Pac-12_multis_entries.pdf
Entries for all other events - http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazona...ld/pdf/2019/2019_Pac-12_TF_Champs_entries.pdf
Heat sheets/ Start Lists for the 2nd weekend's events and races - http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/trackfield/pdf/2019/2019_Pac-12_TF_Champs_heats.pdf

Live Results:
Individual events
- http://finishedresults.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/8213 (Linked to from https://registration.finishedresults.com/meets/1213.)
Team Scores - http://finishedresults.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/8213/score

Live Video Coverage (Looks like none for the Multi-event portion.) - From the Pac 12 homepage linked to above -
"Pac-12 Network will broadcast live starting at 7:30 p.m. PT/ 8:30 p.m. MT on May 11 and at 6 p.m. PT/ 7:30 p.m. MT on May 12."
________________________________________________________________

(Note - The below is just copied from the Regular Season thread, and is important in that Pac 12's is the last chance for the Buffs to improve their season's bests if they have aspirations of qualifying for NCAA Preliminaries and Championships.)

Edit- Wanted to add links to the official webpages where outdoor season bests are kept. This is important because, as from what I've read (see http://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/ncaa-championship-qualifying-criteria#d1OTF for the full qualifying procedures.) -
  • For multi-event athletes, the top 24 marks in the country by a designated date (usually right after conference championships complete for all the teams) for each gender get to go to the NCAA championships and
  • For all other individual events, the top 48 times, distances or heights in each preliminary region (west and east) by athletes who accept entry for each event by a designated date (usually right after conference championships complete for all the teams) get to go to the NCAA preliminaries to try and qualify for the championships.
  • For the 4X100M and 4X400 meter relays, it's the Top 24 times who accept entry in each of the 2 regions that qualify for the preliminaries.
Links are-
For multi-events (National bests; since there are no multi-event marks yet as I type this in mid-March, the links are to the generic lists for all events for each gender as of now.) -
Men's Decathlon-
https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2568/2019_NCAA_Division_I_Outdoor_Qualifying/2019/o?gender=m

Women's Heptathlon - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2568/2019_NCAA_Division_I_Outdoor_Qualifying/2019/o?gender=f

For other events (West region bests) -
Men's - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2570/2018_NCAA_Div._I_West_Outdoor_Qualifying_List/2019/o?gender=m

Women's - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2570/2019_NCAA_Div._I_West_Outdoor_Qualifying/2019/o?gender=f

Both genders events listed/ combined - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2570.html

(As I pasted this edit March 16th, 2019, the season is still very young as to athletes working towards their best marks, so it's often more helpful to look at LAST season's marks to get a ROUGH idea of what marks MIGHT be needed to qualify for regionals. Last year's marks for Western men can be found at https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2281/2018_NCAA_Div._I_West_Outdoor_Qualifying_List/2018/o?gender=m, while the women's is at https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2281/2018_NCAA_Div._I_West_Outdoor_Qualifying_List/2018/o?gender=f .)

Further note- The NCAA also allows a couple type of conversions be used to calculate the top marks-
  • For a few distances on the track, marks in NCAA non-standard races are converted up or down to be used for qualifying purposes. (For example- times in mile races outdoor can be converted to 1500M times.) The conversion factors for this are at http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/NCAA_Track_Event_Conversions.pdf .
  • Also, the NCAA has a SEPARATE APP (see http://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/ncaa-championship-qualifying-criteria#d1OTF for the link) that converts all track times for events competed at altitude to official "sea level" times. (It's the converted times that show up in the above linked-to tfrrs.org top marks lists.) In general, middle distance (800M) and longer races run at altitude calculate to FASTER "sea level" times, while shorter races (400M and less) at altitude calculate to SLOWER times at sea level.
 
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Article after the 1st of 2 days of the Multi-events competitions have been concluded. Hope all on the team finish off the Championships STRONG!



Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/5/t...onzo-in-second-after-first-day-of-pac-12.aspx

"
Track and Field May 04, 2019 Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID

TUSCON – The University of Colorado track and field program senior Maja Wichhart-Donzo is in second in the Pac-12 Championships heptathlon after the first day of competition in Tucson.

The senior started off the competition Saturday with a pair of first place finishes in the high jump and the 200-meter dash. She is 41 points behind the leader, Hannah Rusnak of Washington, after Wichhart-Donzo scored 3,381 points. Michaela Wenning is in fourth with 3,241 points and Drianna Mustin is in 10th with 3,003 points.

Also in the men's decathlon, Josh Farmer is fourth in the competition with 3,759 points after the first day of competition. He is 354 points behind leader Max Vollmer of Oregon.
...

Competition resumes tomorrow at 4 p.m. (MST) with the men's 110 hurdles. The women begin at 5:30 p.m. with the long jump.
"
 
Per Live Results, looks like it was a VERY NICE start to Pac 12's for the Buffs, as:
  • Senior heptathletes' Maja Wichhart-Donzo (2nd, 5600 points) and Michaela Wenning (4th, 5548 points) earn a big combined 13 points to give the Buff women an early lead in the team scoring. Ms. Wichhart-Donzo's points were I believe a new personal best, and move her up to 13th in this year's TFRRS list, with the Top 24 getting invitations to this year's NCAA Championships. Ms. Wenning's best (5585 points) from an earlier meet is now showing in a tie for #15, so she also has a decent chance of being invited. (I should add as I look at the list of top performers (see OP for link)- I don't see any results showing from the other Power 5's championships, so the results are DEFINITELY not final at this point for who will end up in the Top 24. QUICKLY looking at some of the other conference championship schedules, looks like the Pac 12 is the only one that started this weekend, with the other main conferences having ALL their Championships, including the Multi-Events starting around May 9th or 10th. For what it's worth, last season's 24th place point totals was 5,590, and the large majority (17) of the Top 24 points leaders earned their points at the conferences' championships.)
  • On the men's side, freshman Josh Farmer earned his PR with 7,098 points, and ends up 3rd in the decathlon, while junior transfer Wyatt Rhoads (for whom this was his 1st decathlon of the year, so would GUESS he might have been dealing with some injuries earlier in the season) rallies to finish 8th, which is good for a combined 7 points in the team race. (Mr. Farmer's point total puts him #36 in the NCAA at this point, so he won't be going to the NCAA Championships this season, but is still of course a VERY good start for a freshman. It looks like the Pac 12 will be a GREAT competitive conference for decathletes over the next few years, as the Top 3 at the championships were ALL freshmen, AND the top points scorer in the NCAA so far this season is a Trojan freshman who chose not to compete at Conference (in the decathlon) this season.)
Congrats to all the Buffs multi-eventers for the performances!
 
As I writing the above, the official article on today's action was released-


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/6/t...ds-a-pair-of-top-three-finishes-in-multi.aspx

(Note- No big deal, but I believe the seven points I mentioned in my prior post as being the total earned by the Buff men is correct; not the nine noted in the below article. And, that puts the men's team in 3rd, not 2nd.)

"
By: Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID
TUSCON – The University of Colorado track and field program concluded the multi section of the 2019 Pac-12 Championships Sunday evening in Tucson scoring 13 points on the women's side for the early team lead and nine on the men's side for second.

Wichhart-Donzo finished as the runner-up in the women's heptathlon with a new personal best of 5,600 points, while freshman Josh Farmer placed third in the men's decathlon with 7,089 points. Michaela Wenning finished fourth on the women's side with 5,548 points, while Wyatt Rhoads completed his first decathlon for CU for an eighth-place finish with 6,172 points. Drianna Mustin finished 12th in the heptathlon with 4,824 points.

Wichhart-Donzo was in third through six events and moved to second with a win in the 800. Her new personal best of 5,600 moves her up the NCAA performance list from 17th to 13th, while Wenning will drop a spot and is tied for 15th. Wichhart-Donzo won three events, falling short of the title by Hannah Rusnak of Washington by 162 points. Wichhart-Donzo closed out the competition with a win in the 800 with a time of 2:14.29, less than two-tenths of a second off her personal best. She placed top-five in six of the seven events.

Farmer closed out the second day of competition with solid finishes in all five events. The lowest he placed in an event was sixth in the discus, despite having a five-meter improved with a toss of 38.10m (125-0). He posted personal best in the final six events of the competition, including a 10-centimeter improvement in vault (4.20m | 13-9.25), a two-meter improvement in javelin (49.70m | 163-0) and a tenth or better off in both the 110 hurdles and 1,500.

His finish moves him into sixth in school history in the decathlon ahead of last year's MPSF champion Andrew Ghizzone.

Wenning was in second through six events thanks to a large personal best in the javelin. She threw four-meters farther than her previous personal best with a toss of 41.84m (137-3). She also had a huge jump in the long jump of 5.79m (19-0).

Rhoads made up a lot of ground during the second day by placing top-eight in all five final events. He ran 16.08 in the 110 hurdles for fifth and followed it up with a fifth-place finish in the discus with a toss of 38.73m (127-0).

Mustin closes out her heptathlon career with a strong fifth place finish in the 800 with a time of 2:18.96.

The rest of the Colorado team head to Tucson next week to conclude the 2019 Pac-12 Championships.
"
 
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Preview article for this weekend's portion of the Pac 12 Championships is now out. The action starts Saturday (1) afternoon for the field events and (2) evening for the track athletes.

GO BUFFS!!!



Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/9/track-and-field-colorado-set-for-pac-12-championships.aspx

"
Track and Field May | 09, 2019 | Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID

BOULDER – Colorado closes out the regular season with the 2019 Pac-12 Track and Field Championships this Saturday and Sunday at the University of Arizona.

Action begins at noon (MT) with the men's hammer throw on Saturday, while running events being at 6 p.m. (MT) with the 4x100-meter relays prelims. Sunday's events begin at noon with the women's hammer and running events at 7 p.m. (MT) with the 4x100-meter relay finals.

Colorado begins the championships with the women in first after picking up 13 points from Maja Wichhart-Donzo and Michaela Wenning in the heptathlon. The men are in third after Josh Farmer placed third in the decathlon and Wyatt Rhoads placed eighth.
...

Colorado's highest placing at the Pac-12 Championships is third for the women in 2017 and fourth for the men the same year. The events will be televised on the Pac-12 Network. Coverage begins at 8:30 p.m. (MT) on Saturday and 7 p.m. (MT) on Sunday on all Pac-12 Network channels, apps and online.

Track and field- List and schedule of participants_2019 Pac 12 Championships.png
"
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Note- per an Instagram post he made, the Buffs are going to be without one of their "big guns" the rest of this outdoor track season as distance runner Joe Klecker posted he's out for the rest of the season due to injury (per his post "stress injury in my foot"). Wishing him a complete, timely and not too annoying or painful recovery.
(Thanks to https://www.thestridereport.com/ for 1st alerting me of this, but of course NO thanks for the news itself.)
 
It's the start of of the non-multi events portion of the Pac 12 Championships this evening (except for the hammer starting around noon MT).

Go Buffs!

Also, could have put the below either in this thread or the graduation one, but since she is racing today and tomorrow, figured I'd put it here. Congrats to Kaitlyn Benner for her well-earned Scholar-Athlete honor!



Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/11/...named-pac-12-scholar-athlete-of-the-year.aspx

"
By: Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID
Release: May 11, 2019


TUCSON – Colorado senior Kaitlyn Benner has been named the Pac-12 Women's Track and Field of the Year, the league office announced today prior to the racing of the conference championships. The award, which is presented in each of the 23 sports the Pac-12 sponsors, was established to honor collegiate student-athletes that are standouts both academically and in their sports discipline.

"It's definitely a really big honor to get it in track because there are a lot more people than there were in cross country," said Benner. "It's nice to get rewarded for all the hard work through athletics and academics."

Benner is a senior distance runner with a 3.955 GPA in Chemical and Bioengineering with a minor in Engineering Management. She was named the Pac-12 Cross Country Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2017. Benner was named a CoSIDA Academic All-American Third Team last year and is a two-time CoSIDA All-District First Team member. She is also a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic First Team member in track.

On the track, Benner is a six-time All-American, including a three-time cross country All-American. She recently was a First Team All-American in last year's 10,000 as she finished seventh in a time of 33:13.38.

Benner owns four top-10 marks in school history. She is eighth in CU history in both the indoor 3,000 and 5,000, seventh in the outdoor 5,000 and third in the 10,000 with her runner up finish at the Pac-12 Championships last year in 32:45.05.

This is the second-straight Pac-12 Track and Field Scholar Athlete of the Year honor that Colorado has received. Last year Ben Saarel took home the honor as the Male Scholar Athlete of the Year. The Buffaloes now have three such honors in school history after John Souza was named the Pac-12 Men's Golf Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2018.
"
___________________________________________________________

Also, wanted to note I have now added into the original post the link to the heat sheets and an updated schedule.
 
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Championships in a lightning delay. (Looks like the 10K's, with the women's originally scheduled for a 10:15 start, may now go LATE into the evening, if not into tomorrow.)


Nice Buff highlight already-


(I probably won't be able to provide any more updates until early morning.)
 
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Looks like it was a nice 1st day (which actually bled a little into day 2 with the lightning delay) for the teams:
  • The 1st individual Buff champion was in, what else, the women's steeplechase, as senior Val Constien won by almost 7 seconds. (Believe a Buff has won this race every year since CU joined the PAC.)
  • Both the men and women also picked up good and very similar results in the 10000M, with the men finishing 2,3,7 (junior Dressel and seniors Forsyth and Gonzales) while the women went 2,3,6 (senior Benner and juniors Morley and Scholl). Must have seemed a little wierd, as at minimum it looks like the women's race started after midnight.)
  • Also re the 10000M, looks like Dressel's and Forsyth's times slot into around the 33rd or so positions in the West prelims per TFRRS, so hopefully they'll stay in the top 48.
  • On the women's side, Benner and Morley's time are around the top 20, so should be safely into the prelims. School's time is in the low 30's, so will hopefully also work.
  • Points-wise, the women hold the small lead with 40 points, while the men are in 5th with 23. (The men overall have completed more field events, so are a little farther along (7 vs. 4 out of 21 total events for both genders). As reference, last year the women ended up in 4th with 76 points, while the men earned 72 points, which was good for 5th.)
 
Haven't had a chance until now to post the final article after Pac 12's completed Sunday evening-


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/5/13/...pture-three-titles-in-third-place-finish.aspx

"
By: Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID
Release: May 12, 2019

TUCSON – The 2019 Pac-12 Championships concluded Sunday evening in Tucson with the University of Colorado women's track and field program placing third overall with 92 points while the men placed ninth with 48 points.
The women's finish is tied for the highest in school history in the Pac-12 and came from taking three titles in less than a 24-hour period. Val Constien won the 11th-consecutive women's conference steeplechase title late last night, then Elissa Mann added a women's 800-meter run title and Dani Jones took home the crown in the women's 5,000-meter run.

Mann was the first title winner in the second day of competition after running 2:04.35, edging Oregon's Susan Ejore at the line by four-tenths of a second. Mann put down the fastest second lap of the event in 64 seconds after hitting the bell lap in around fourth. She is now just the second-ever CU woman to win a conference title in the outdoor 800, joining Leigh Ballenger who won a pair of titles in 1978 and 1980.

The final championship came in the women's 5,000 with Dani Jones making her season debut in the event. Jones won this event in 2017 before redshirting in 2018. She took the race in 15:54.86, defeating Stanford's Fiona O'Keefe by three-tenths of a second. Jones joins Sara (Gorton) Slattery as the only CU women to win multiple outdoor 5,000 titles.

The 5,000 was a huge event for the women as they picked up 18 points after Makena Morley placed third and Constien placed seventh. Morley crossed the line in 15:58.82 while Constien ran 16:09.11.

Another large point performance came in the women's 400 hurdles when Gabby Scott dropped her own school record to 56.82 for second. USC's Anna Cockrell took the title in 56.46, but CU stole the show with three women in the top-eight for 13 points. All three women ran personal bests as Eriana Henderson ran 58.82 for sixth and Valerie Welch ran 59.13 for seventh. Henderson improves her fourth-best mark in school history while Welch jumps all the way to fifth in school history.
...

Colorado will next compete in two weeks in Sacramento at the 2019 NCAA Championships West Preliminaries. As the results stand right now there are 18 marks on the women's side ranked in the top-45 in the West and 13 for the men. Also for Colorado, as the results stand both Michaela Wenning and Wichhart-Donzo are ranked in the top-24 in the nation in the heptathlon and qualify for the NCAA National Championships.

2019 Pac 12 outdoor Track and Field Competition- Final Buff results.png
"
______________________________________________________________

Full results - http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazona...ld/pdf/2019/2019_Pac-12_TF_Champs_results.pdf

~3 minute Interview after women's 5000M with Dani Jones and Makena Morley-
https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.ph...ent_id=20&year=2019&do=videos&video_id=275841
 
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