BOSTON –
Luke Houser took it to the house again and kept the Washington mid-distance domination going for a fourth-straight national championship in the mile/1500-meters. The defending champion in the men’s mile defended in style today at The TRACK At New Balance, becoming just the 10th man in history to go back-to-back in one of indoor track’s marquee events.
The Woodinville, Wash. native essentially took the lead with four laps and 800-meters still to run and never relinquished it, with his long, gliding strides checking every attempted move from a rival. Houser powered to the finish in a time of 4:01.72, two-tenths of a second ahead of Wisconsin’s Adam Spencer in second-place.
Immediately recapping the race with ESPN’s John Anderson, Houser said, “I took the lead early, because I knew positioning was so important. I was getting challenged every lap, someone was coming up on my shoulder, but I just had to keep fighting to hold them off. I was able to get all the way home.”
Joe Waskom, who started UW’s title streak at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor meet, found himself boxed in on the last lap and then got tripped with less than a hundred meters to go and he finished in eighth-place to pick up one more point for UW.
Houser is the first back-to-back NCAA Mile Champion since Josh Kerr in 2017-18, who recently won the 2023 World Outdoor Championship at 1,500 meters. He also is just the fourth Husky ever to successfully defend an NCAA title, and the first ever in a running event. The last man to do it was Scott Roth, who won consecutive indoor pole vault titles in 2010-11.
“It’s certainly not easy the second time around,” said Houser. “You still have got to put in the same work, week in and week out. I knew what it took to win, so every day I showed up to practice with that champion’s mentality, and put in the work all year to get to this point.”
???? BACK 2 BACK!! LUKE IS GOATED!! ????
He put himself out there and nobody could take down the Champ!!#GoHuskies x #NCAATF x ?? ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/GrOxoUOgMn
— Washington Track & Field and Cross Country (@UWTrack) March 9, 2024
The victory for Houser, along with podium finishes for Joe Waskom, Wilma Nielsen, and Bruno Comin Pescador brought the meet and the indoor season to a close for the Dawgs.
Washington finished in 10th-place on the men’s side with 20 points. It’s the fifth top-10 finish in program history,…
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