NCAA West Prelims Start Wednesday

EUGENE, Ore. – The Oregon track and field team continues the postseason stretch with the NCAA West Preliminary in Sacramento, Calif. As announced last week, the Ducks are sending 43 entries to the meet which begins Wednesday at Hornet Stadium.
 
From the 48 declared student-athletes in each event, the top 12 advance to the NCAA Championships (June 7-10) in Austin Texas. The NCAA East Preliminary is being held concurrently in Jacksonville, Fla.
 
Beginning with the first track event on the meet schedule, each day of the NCAA West Preliminary will be streamed by ESPN+ and through the ESPN app. Live results will available through Flash Results and can be viewed HERE.
 
Watch: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
 
The Men of Oregon will have three opportunities in two events for a national qualifier on day one with Mason Strunk in the hammer and Jett Kinder and Dalton Rasmussen in the javelin. Rasmussen was an NCAA qualifier in 2021 and enters the week with a season’s best of 67.20m/220-6 from the conference meet. Kinder is making his third West Preliminary appearance in the javelin.
 
Strunk is coming off a lifetime-best mark of 67.33m/220-11 in a sixth-place finish in the hammer at the Pac-12 Championships. He also qualified for the West Preliminary last season. Strunk will be the Ducks’ first athlete in competition with the hammer scheduled for a 10 a.m. start. He will throw in the second of three flights.
 
Wednesday will also feature first-round heats of the 100, 800 and 1500 meters for the UO men. Two-time Pac-12 champion Micah Williams and freshman PJ Ize-Iyamu Jr., will run the 100 while Matthew Erickson and James Gormely are set for the 800 and 1500 meters, respectively.
 
In the 100 and 800 meters, the top three from each of the six heats plus the next three fastest overall advance to Friday’s quarterfinals. With four heats in the 1500, the top five in each race plus the next four fastest move on to the next round in Sacramento.
 
To mirror the format of the national meet, the NCAA Preliminary rounds are held over four days with an alternating men’s and women’s program. The NCAA East Preliminary is being hosted concurrently by the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.
 
The women’s competition begins Thursday.
 
The Ducks have already secured a pair of national qualifiers with Rafael Raap and Taylor Chocek in the decathlon and heptathlon, respectively. Raap was the Pac-12 runner-up with his score of 7,695 points while…