Portland State’s track and field program is on cruise control as the Vikings await the upcoming Outdoor Big Sky Conference Championship. The team has only two meets between now and the outdoor championships—the Oregon Relays and the Oregon Twilight meet. Both meets will take place in Eugene.
Portland State’s track and field program is on cruise control as the Vikings await the upcoming Outdoor Big Sky Conference Championship. The team has only two meets between now and the outdoor championships—the Oregon Relays and the Oregon Twilight meet. Both meets will take place in Eugene.
The outdoor season will be capped off with the championships, which take place May 9–12 in Bozeman, Mont. The two remaining meets for the Vikings are not as much about qualifying as previous meets have been: both of these meets will be about preparation. Both the men’s and women’s team hope to be better or just as successful as indoor season.
“For the Oregon Relays, I am not really expecting anything new, just to continue the success we had last weekend,” head coach Ronnye Harrison said. “Maybe for a few people to have continued [personal records], and mainly for a few people to get race-ready for conference.”
This upcoming meet is more about the team gaining confidence and staying competitive.
“This is the time of the year where we are starting to see our kids gel,” assistant coach Seth Henson said. “From a team standpoint, we want to see us hitting on all cylinders. We are done with the big picture stuff, everything as far as training is downhill from now on.”
The weekend of April 12, the Vikings competed in the Mondo Invitational, which Harrison called the big meet of the season. This meet has been good for Portland State in the past, so Harrison expected big things out of his team. The Mondo Invitational is the only meet that every member of the track and field program attends, and it is also against the Vikings’ rival, Sacramento State.
“All of our training up to this point was really geared to having our finest performance at that meet, the Mondo Invite,” Harrison said. “We had a ton of PRs, we had school records set and a meet record set.”
The Mondo Invite really put the track and field program were it wants to be. The women are looking to repeat their third place finish from the outdoor season. Geronne Black has had a great outdoor season so far. At the Mondo Invite, Black broke the Portland State record in the 100-meter dash. The junior sprinter will lead the Vikings at the conference championships, where Harrison and the rest of the coaching staff think another third-place finish is possible.
“It would be huge,” Henson said. “It would show that we finally developed a culture that we were looking for. We are definitely getting our kids ready to compete at conference championships and what you see when you see teams that repeat like that is that you have an actual team. We have individuals on this team that are really good, but when you get points on the team aspect we are really getting it done.”
The men are looking to better their performance during the indoor season, but it will be a struggle. The men are redshirting a lot of athletes this year, so the program will be closer to full strength next season—though that doesn’t mean the men aren’t going to be competitive at the conference championships.
“We are certainly not going to be in the cellar,” Harrison said. “We have many more competitive-level athletes than we have had in previous years and in different events. I think this is going to be one of the better scoring years on the men’s side.”
The Portland State track and field program has two meets left before the conference championships the week of May 10. Both meets take place in Eugene, with the Oregon Relays the weekend of April 20 and the Oregon Twilight meet on May 5.
