NCAA Championships

The men of Oregon are chasing an NCAA team title once again! Always exciting to have a distance based team mixing it up with the sprint power houses to try and grab a win Outdoors. It's not going to be easy, but they will have the home track advantage of Hayward field on their side!

The upcoming NCAA meet is set to be one to remember across the board. The 400m should be super exciting with Arman Hall of Florida, who split 43 high this year, racing Deon Leondore who has run 44 and change from scratch this year. Sub 45 man Mike Berry of Oregon will compete for the title as will Brycen Spratling of Pittsburgh.

In the 800m two of PAs own will be in the hunt to make it to the finals and grab an All-American spot. Sam Ellison of Upper Dublin ran 1:47.60 to tie his PR in the regional qualifying meet and comes in as a top 5 seed at this meet. He also split a 1:46 anchor leg at Penn Relays to help get his team the Wheel in the 4x8. Luke Lefebure of Stanford is the other PA alumn in the hunt. He has run 1:47 this spring and grabbed an NCAA championship this year indoors in the DMR.

Edward Kemboi is likely the favorite in the event coming in with an open PR under 1:46. Brandon McBride is also one of the top guys to watch with multiple sub 1:47 marks. Florida has 3 national qualifiers for the second straight year including Sean Obinwa and Andres Arroyo (a freshman who ran 1:47 last year as a Senior in high school). The last high schooler to run 1:47 was Elijah Greer who won the NCAA title last year as a Senior at Oregon so perhaps a title is in young Andres's future when the dust clears.

Harry McFann of Columbia, Patrick Rono of Arkansas and Boru Guyota of Oregon are other names to remember as sleepers for the finals.

The men's 1500 is going to be a very exciting field. Leading the way is defending champion Mac Fleet from Oregon. He has the kick and the home crowd advantage to put him a great spot to repeat as champion. However, he will have his hands full with Law Lalang of Arizona who last summer dropped his PR to a very quick 3:33, considerably faster than the PRs of everyone else in the NCAA (keep in mind the NCAA "record" is Merber's 3:35 from a few years back).

Peter Callahan of New Mexico has a fantastic kick and will be dangerous if the pace is kept slow. He was a national champ at Princeton in the DMR but has not been able to burst through in the 15 and establish himself as an individual. Perhaps this is his year.

Jake Hursyz and frosh sensation Ben Saarel will represent Coloardo in this race. Sub 4 milers Mike Atchoo of Stanford and John Simons of Minnesota will be on the line as well. Brandon Kidder's 3:38 is one of the top times in the NCAA this year and he will look to take home the title for PSU. Also worth noting is Jordan Williamsyz who split 1:46ish at the World Relays and ran 3:56ish indoors for 1 mile. He could give Nova an individual title after the 1500m final is over.