Pac-12 Champs! DawgsDominate

MARK MOSCHETTI • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE

First time for everything, right? For the University of Washington men’s track and field team, that includes first place. Sweeping every distance event from 800 to 10,000 meters — including the title clincher by Brian Fay in the 5,000 — the Huskies won their first-ever Pac-12 Conference crown on May 14, thereby ending Oregon’s 15-year reign.

Washington wound up with 151 points, 14 ahead of second-place Southern California. Oregon was sixth with 75.

“A long time coming,” UW head coach Andy Powell said on the Pac-12 Networks telecast after the meet. “When we took over five years ago, we told some of the freshmen that this was going to be our goal.

“Today was special because it was not just one event group, it was a whole team effort,” Powell added. “One person goes down, and other people step up. You can’t do it with a couple individuals. You have to have a great team.”

On the final day of the meet at Hilmer Lodge Stadium in Walnut, Calif., Fay was already in championship form. The senior from Ireland won the 10,000 on the first night, getting to the finish line 22 hundredths of a second ahead of Stanford’s Charlie Hicks. Fay clocked 28:24.90.

He had more of a gap in the 5K, winning by four-plus seconds in 14:08.03. The 10 team points he picked up, plus senior Jacob Englar’s eight for a second-place pole vault finish, were enough to seal the deal for the Huskies with just the 4-by400 relay remaining.

Fay’s titles were two of the program-record seven during the three-day competition.

Senior Sam Ellis won the 800 meters in 1:46.77; fellow sophomore Nathan Green took the 1,500 in 3:42.22, and senior Ed Trippas was nearly five seconds in front of the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a winning time of 8:37.26.

Senior Cass Elliott defended his 400-meter hurdles title in 49.31, and junior Ollie Thorner won the decathlon, totaling 7,761 points.

Washington’s women hit a milestone of their own, finishing in sole possession of third place with 85.5 points. Their previous high had been a tie for third in 2019.

The Huskies had not just one champion, but essentially two champions in the pole vault as junior Nastassja Campbell and sophomore Sara Borton both cleared 14 feet, 3 ¼ inches. That marked the first time in Pac-12 history that the women’s pole vault crown was shared. Even the fewer-misses tiebreaker couldn’t separate them, as both had cleared all their preceding bars, then missed twice at 14-3 ¼ before getting over on the third attempt.

For Borton, it was the first time in her career that she cleared a 14-footer outdoors. It was the third straight title and second straight 1-2 finish for Washington vaulters.

A first-year Husky after transferring from Arkansas, Campbell vaulted into the national lead on April 15 at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, Calif., clearing 14 feet, 11 inches. That was still No. 1 coming out of conference. The only vaulter ahead of Campbell in the UW record book is also the only female 15-footer in that record book: Olivia Gruver, who went 15-6 ¼ in 2019.

Junior Ida Eikeng broke her own school record again in the women’s heptathlon, finishing with 6,114 points for second place behind Southern Cal senior Allie Jones (6,234). Eikeng won the shot put portion (47-2 ½) and the javelin portion (167-6).

The nationals are Wednesday-Saturday, June 7-10, at the University of Texas in Austin. Visit GoHuskies.com to see the results and coverage.

Indoors. Outdoors. For the Huskies, the change of seasons didn’t change their knack for rewriting their track and field record books.

After a remarkably successful winter under the roof with multiple new school standards established, UW athletes kept it going under open skies this spring.

Before flying to California for the Pac-12s, three Huskies had risen to the top of the program lists in their respective events, and one more simply improved upon the record that she already owned.

One of those record book newcomers was Ed Trippas, a senior and a 2020 Australian Olympian who previously starred at Princeton before joining Washington this year. On April 21 in the Payton Jordan Invitational, Trippas broke the 36-year-old standard in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase. Trippas completed his 7½ laps around Stanford University’s Cobb Track in 8 minutes, 31.40 seconds.

In so doing, Trippas, who was fifth in the NCAA steeplechase last spring, erased Dan Bell’s record of 8:32.27 that was set in 1987. Not only was Trippas’ time by far and away the fastest in the Pac-12, but it also ranked No. 3 in the country at the end of conference weekend.

Cass Elliott didn’t go quite that far back in 400-meter hurdles race. But history is history, and the senior already has plenty of experience in making it. At the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson, Ariz., on April 30, Elliott came across the finish line in 49.26 seconds.

That took down Shane Charles’ 17-year-old mark of 49.51, set in 2006. It was Elliott’s third record-setting run of 2023. He beat the indoor 800-meter record twice. The first one was 1:47.89 on Jan. 28. Then, after teammate Nathan Green snagged it from him on Feb. 11 with a 1:46.99, Elliott took it back on Feb. 25 in 1:47.76.

Like Elliott, junior distance star Joe Waskom knows something about records. On Jan. 27 at the UW Invitational indoor meet in what was dubbed a modern-day version of the “Miracle Mile,” Waskom raced to the top of the Husky leaderboard with his time of 3:51.90.

On April 15 at the top-flight Bryan Clay Invite, Waskom posted a 3:35.86 in the 1,500 meters. The reigning NCAA champion in that race thus moved past current teammates Nathan Green (who had been No. 1 at 3:37.46) and Luke Houser (previously No. 2 at 3:37.51).

Every time Ida Eikeng enters a heptathlon, she’s a threat to break the Washington record for total points in the two-day, seven-event endurance endeavor.

That’s because she has broken it five times already — and now, it’s six times after the aforementioned 6,114 she scored at Pac-12s.

Record No. 5 came on April 12-13 at the Mt. Sac Relays, one of the top national caliber meets every spring at Hilmer Lodge Stadium. Not only was this particular performance a record breaker, but it was also a barrier buster.

The Norwegian native and three-time first-team All-American finished with exactly 6,100 points. It was her first time surpassing 6,000 and beat her previous No. 1 all-time UW tally of 5,939 that gave her second place at the 2022 NCAA Championships.

Her Mt. Sac total included personal-best distances in both of the throws: 48 feet, 4 inches in the shot put, and 171-6 in the javelin. Her jav distance was 17 feet farther than her closest challenger.