Huskies Defend Team Title At Final Pac-12 Championships

BOULDER, Colo. – Once was historic. Twice was euphoric. The Washington men’s track and field team never won the Pac-12 title in the first 63 years of the conference, but UW broke through to win in 2023, and today they completed their title defense, riding off into the Pac-12 sunset as back-to-back champions.
 
In the first Pac-12 Championships held at altitude, at Colorado’s Potts Field, the Dawgs stayed kings of the mountain on the men’s side, finishing off a 150-point performance from its 28-man crew to hold off second-place USC (141 points) and third-place California (95 points). The storied conference will go its separate ways next season, with Washington off to the Big Ten.
 
The Husky women’s team placed fifth in its final Pac-12 appearance, marking five consecutive top-five finishes under Maurica Powell. The women scored 69 points, highlighted by an enormous 28-points in the pole vault (as UW finished 1-2-3-5 in that event) and a 1,500-meters title from Chloe Foerster, the first Husky to win that event since 2009.
 
Washington’s second-straight team title only further cements the historic rise up through the conference ranks during Head Coach Andy Powell‘s tenure. The men were 8th at this meet prior to Powell taking over, then went to fourth in year one, up to third in 2021, then second in 2022 and to the top spot in 2023. With nowhere to go but down, the Dawgs instead chose to stay on top.
 
“It was just a great team effort,” said Andy Powell. “It wasn’t necessarily the guys that won (titles) that won this championship, it was all the second, third, fourth, fifth-place finishers.”
 
To Powell’s point, last year the Huskies took the title behind a program record seven individual victories, scoring 151 points. This year the Huskies scored 150, but with only three titles (Chandler Ault – Javelin; Prestin Artis – Long Jump; Joe Waskom – Steeplechase). The depth got it done for the Dawgs.
 
“It’s these guys. It’s the people,” said Powell. “That’s where Washington does a great job. We have a great culture, great coaches … it’s truly something special. It’s a place to get a great education, you can win championships, you can get to the highest level and get to the Olympics. We’re certainly starting to catch fire, and I think our teams are just getting better and better.”
 
Distances
 
The first big highlight on the track today came from Foerster in the women’s 1500-meter final. In an incredibly deep field, Foerster…