Eight Huskies to compete for national title in indoor track

This weekend, eight Huskies will compete for at indoor track and field national championships in Fayettleville, Ark., in seven events.

The competitors include three men and five women, all of whom are expected to be serious contenders for their respective titles.

“Nobody on our team is just happy to go to the meet,” coach Greg Metcalf said. “They’re all collectively— every single one of them — ready to go to Fayetteville and go out and get [the championship].”

Senior jumper Norris Frederick is considered the strongest UW competitor at the meet. The five-time All-American is currently seeded first in the long jump and fifth in the high jump.

“This is a position where he’s never been in before, where he’s the favorite, so it’ll be interesting to see how he responds,” assistant coach Jimmy Bean said. “He’s more mature than he’s ever been, and a big part of it is going in there and handling expectations of yourself.”

The highly acclaimed women’s mile field will be in Arkansas as well. The University of Washington leads the women’s mile field with three competitors out of 17.

“We have three women’s milers ranked in the top 15 in the country; with those numbers you start to figure one of them is going to be an All-American, maybe one of them might have a shot to win [the national championship],” Bean said.

Sophomore Katie Follett qualified for the NCAA championships by scoring an automatic bid with her upset victory in the Husky Classic Invitational.

“Katie Follett wasn’t supposed to beat Arianna Lambie (from Stanford) at the Husky Invitational and she went out and got a big victory,” Metcalf said.

Not to be overlooked is the championship veteran, senior Amanda Miller, who also received an automatic bid during the Husky Classic. The two-time All-American finished ninth in last year’s indoor championships.

Rounding out the women’s mile team is junior Michelle Turner, who barely missed an automatic bid in last week’s Last Chance meet.

All three runners, along with junior sprinter Falesha Ankton, make up the women’s distance medley relay (DMR) team, which waited out a nail-biter last Sunday to see if it qualified for the indoor championships.

“We’re number eleven in the country, but we’re only four seconds out of number three,” Metcalf said. “When we ran DMR, we kind of had an average day; we can run light years faster in all honesty.”

UW’s top sprinter, Jordan Boase, will compete in the men’s 400-meter dash.

“If he runs the right race and gets into the right position, he can go win it,” Bean said.

Finally, the Huskies will send top-notch pole vaulters, sophomore Scott Roth and senior Kelley DiVesta, to the indoor championships.

“Scott Roth is an 18-foot pole vaulter; anything can happen on a given day in the pole vault,” Metcalf said. “Scottie’s got a shot.”

As in all the events, the high stakes will be a factor.

“Kelley DiVesta also has all the ability needed to go out and win the pole vault; it’s just a matter of executing under the pressure,” Metcalf said to gohuskies.com.

The NCAA championships will take place in Fayetteville, Ark., Friday and Saturday.

[Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.]