By Nate Allen
Special to the News-Times
FAYETTEVILLE - Boarding the June 10 Saturday night flight from Eugene, Ore., back to Fayetteville, Arkansas women’s coach Lance Harter told a caller he was weathering more of the same his Razorbacks weathered at the NCAA Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
“It was one of those very bumpy meets similar to the weather we are enduring here,” Harter said. “We had rain. We had hail. We had lightning storms. We had a little bit of everything over the course of the weekend. That’s how our team was. We had some great performances and then we had some people that were nicked up.”
Harter’s Razorbacks finished sixth nationally at the NCAA Outdoor with 38.2 points, just 1.8 points shy of a podium-standing fourth place.
Kentucky (40) got fourth with Florida fifth (39). LSU, runner-up to Arkansas at the SEC Outdoor, was seventh in Eugene with 32 points.
Becoming the first women’s NCAA cross country-indoor-outdoor triple crown winner in the same academic year, a feat that retired Arkansas coach John McDonnell’s Razorbacks men accomplished five times, Oregon won the outdoor with 64.2 points.
Georgia, second, 62.2, led until Oregon won the 4x400 relay, the meet’s last event.
Southern California, 43 points and a Pac 12 school as is Oregon, was third in Eugene.
So five of the top seven national outdoor finishers came from the SEC.
On the conference level, SEC cross country-indoor-outdoor triple crown winner Arkansas handily outpointed them all at the SEC Outdoor in Columbia, S.C.
However, it’s a different deal nationally.
Overall, team conference depth is eschewed for elite scoring qualifiers.
Georgia had about 48 points guaranteed with its elite in the heptathlon.
Kendell Williams, now a three-time NCAA outdoor heptathlon champion, skipped the SEC meet to train for Eugene, was bound to be a NCAA player, Harter predicted.
He knew Kentucky and Florida would be good nationally, but obviously counted on Arkansas for better.
“We can all do some soul searching about what we could have done here, there or whatever,” Harter said.
Some Arkansas NCAA outdoor first-timers ran “with that deer in the headlights look” Harter said in the Thursday prelims of the 4x400.
That left superb senior Daina Harper, “a great leg” on the 4x400, but unable to compensate alone, only the 400-meters, she ran a personal record 51.42 for an All-American fourth, and the sixth-place 4x100 relay, 43.68, on Saturday’s final.
The 4x100 was partially affected and Arkansas’ heptathlon severely affected by junior All-American Payton Stumbaugh injuring her back during Friday’s heptathlon long jump.
In Williams’ absence, Razorbacks Taliyah Brooks, Stumbaugh, Leigha Brown and Kelsey Herman placed first through fourth in the SEC Outdoor heptathlon.
Minus Herman, crashing on Thursday’s first heptathlon 100-meters hurdle, and Stumbaugh, the Razorbacks still got yeoman third and fourth-place finishes for 11 team points from Brooks and Brown.
“We were second, third and fourth with Payton, Taliyah and Leigha in the heptathlon until Payton jammed her back in the long jump,” Harter said. “So we pulled her out of the heptathlon to protect the 4x100 and ended up sixth, but she still wasn’t as effective as she would have been.”
The Razorbacks still had much to celebrate in Eugene.
All-Americans at the NCAA Indoor, pole vaulters Lexi Weeks, second, Tori Weeks, sixth, and Desiree Freier, were All-Americans again with the Weeks twins qualified to compete in the USA Championships in Sacramento, Calif. Nikki Hiltz, also a USA qualifier, ran second in the 1,500, a great homecoming for the former Oregon Duck.
After Oregon’s incredible year with the best you can get three points for winning the NCAA Cross Country-Indoor-Outdoor triple crown, the Razorbacks tied for third with Stanford in the standings for the Terry Crawford Program of the Year Award.
The United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association, honoring former Texas and Tennessee coach Terry Crawford just as the USTFCCCA honors McDonnell with the men’s Program of the Year which Chris Bucknam’s Razorbacks won this year, awards the top aggregate finisher for NCAA cross country, indoor track and outdoor track.
Arkansas, 19th in NCAA cross country, hampered by All-American Devin Clark’s injury that ultimately compelled her to redshirt indoors and outdoors, was fifth at the NCAA Indoor and sixth at the NCAA Outdoor, tied at 30 points with Stanford.
Colorado was second.
With Clark returning and only heptathlete Brown and quartermiler Harper scoring NCAA outdoor points as 2017 seniors, Harter looks for even better results in 2017-2018.
“Everybody else comes back and you’ve got a proven All-American in Devin Clark,” Harter said. “We have kids coming in that can put together a good mile relay, etc., etc. And we are not done recruiting yet.”