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Thursday, June 16, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Women’s track and field places 20th 

at NCAA Outdoor Championships

By MATTHEW KENNEDY

Daily Sports Writer

Competing at its final meet of 

the season, the Michigan women’s 
track and field team had four 
athletes earn All-American honors 
on its way to a top-20 finish. 
Despite the strong performance, 
though, not all of the races went as 
well as planned.

Five Wolverines competed at 

Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., 
in three different events, with the 
first events taking place Thursday.

While four of the Michigan 

runners had preliminary races 
that day, sophomore Gina Sereno 
competed in the lone race of the 
10,0000-meter run. Due to its 
length, the event does not have a 
preliminary run, and the only run 
is for the championship.

With little room for error, 

Sereno ran a career-best time 
of 33:35.16 to capture 13th place 
— good enough for All-America 
honors. Sereno’s time was almost 
exactly a minute behind the 
championship performance.

After an uneventful day Friday 

for the Wolverines, three runners 
returned to the track for final 
races Saturday.

Fifth-year 
senior 
Shannon 

Osika and redshirt sophomore 
Jaimie Phelan both qualified for 
the 1,500-meter run Saturday, 
making two of three Michigan 
runners qualify for the finals after 
fifth-year senior Devon Hoppe 
narrowly missed out on advancing.

The event was arguably the 

Wolverines’ best on the day, with 
Osika taking fourth place and five 
points with a time of 4:12.23, just 
three seconds behind the victor. 
Phelan also earned one point for 
the team with her eighth-place 
finish of 4:15.61.

“It was an awesome experience,” 

Osika said. “It was my first race at 
Hayward Field and it was a very 
high energy facility. There were a 
lot of fans and it was even better 
getting to experience it with my 
two teammates Devon and Jaimie. 
To be able to run the prelim with 
Devon and the final with Jaimie 
was a really cool experience.”

The most anticipated event 

of the weekend for Michigan 
featured one of the Wolverines’ 
most-decorated runners of all-
time: senior Cindy Ofili.

Ofili 
won 
the 
60-meter 

hurdles at the NCAA Indoor 
Championships in March, and 
currently holds the seventh-fastest 
time in the world in the event for 
2016. After narrowly winning the 
100-meter hurdles at the Big Ten 
Championships last month, Ofili 
seemed to be the odds-on-favorite 
to take home the 100-meter 
hurdles crown.

With an incredibly strong wind 

of +3.8 behind Ofili — well above 
the +2.0 threshold for records to 
count — Ofili managed to get out to 
an early lead. But she was moving 
too fast and could not keep up the 
pace, ultimately dropping all the 
way down to fourth with a time 
of 12.81 seconds. The finish still 
provided the team with five points, 

but after such a stellar regular 
season, losing the final race by 
0.27 seconds was not how most 
envisioned the race going.

“That was the biggest positive 

wind that she’s had in her life, 
and she wasn’t quite sure how to 
handle that,” said Michigan coach 
James Henry. “She probably had 
the best race of her life, and all of 
that accumulating, it seemed to 
her that the hurdles were getting 
to her too soon and they were 
too close and she just could not 
navigate it.”

Still, the year was a memorable 

one for the team. Michigan took 
home both the Big Ten Indoor 
Championship 
and 
Big 
Ten 

Outdoor Championship, and even 
came in second in the Big Ten 
Cross Country Championship. A 
sixth-place at the NCAA Indoor 
Championship followed by this 
weekend’s 
results 
marks 
the 

first time since 2009 that the 
Wolverines have finished in the 
top 20 of both championships.

“In the end, we always want 

to be in a position to win,” Henry 
said. “But to come out as a winner 
it made me very happy that the 
girls listened and that they worked 
hard, and I’m just so thankful for 
the senior class to go out the way 
it did because these kids that are 
graduating have been some of the 
best students and some of the best 
athletes. More importantly, they 
have been some of the best people 
that have come to the University 
of Michigan, and I am so happy to 
have coached them.”

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Cindy Ofili could not take home the 100-meter hurdles championship, finishing fourth.

Michigan earns best 

NCAA finish since 1997

By MIKE PERSAK

Daily Sports Writer

The Michigan men’s track 

and field team had finished in 
the top 15 at the NCAA Outdoor 
Championships only once in the 
last 55 seasons. That changed 
last week.

The 
Wolverines 
sent 
six 

athletes to Eugene, Ore., who 
combined to score 15 points — 
a count good enough to pull 
Michigan into a tie for 13th place 
overall.

The highlight of the meet for 

the Wolverines came from fifth-
year senior distance runner 
Mason Ferlic in the 3,000-meter 
steeplechase. Ferlic entered the 
meet ranked No. 1 nationally in 
the event, and backed up that 
ranking convincingly. Heading 
into the final lap of the race, the 
fifth-year senior had opened 
up a lead so large that even a 
stumble when landing in the 
final water pit didn’t thwart 
his chances of finishing first. 
Ferlic still won the race easily, 
finishing 3.51 seconds ahead of 
the second-place runner.

“He’s been so focused his 

entire career here at Michigan,” 
said 
Michigan 
coach 
Jerry 

Clayton. “But he’s been so 
dominant in that event every 
time he’s raced this year. He’s 
pretty much (gone) out, taken 
control of the race from the 
beginning, and that led to him 
hitting the qualifying standard 
for the Olympic Trials, and 
then he carried that right on 
through the (Big Ten Outdoor 
Championships), 
the 
(NCAA 

Preliminary Rounds) and even 
in the qualifying rounds.

“It’s just a credit to him, and 

what an outstanding way to 
finish his career as a Wolverine.”

Freshman 
sprinter 
Taylor 

McLaughlin also became an All-
American this weekend in the 
400-meter hurdles by finishing 
fifth in the event with a time of 
49.74 seconds, only .01 seconds 
away from his personal record.

McLaughlin 
finished 
first 

among all freshmen competing 
in the 400-meter hurdles, and 
with all of the success that he 
has had in his rookie season, 
the future looks bright for the 

freshman.

“I don’t like to put predictions 

or limits on people,” Clayton 
said. “I think he can be as good 
as he wants to be. The talent is 
there. If he stays focused … we 
just feel really confident (in 
McLaughlin). I don’t anticipate 
any problems from what I’ve 
seen. He’s just a great person, 
and that’s the bottom line.”

Ferlic 
and 
McLaughlin 

weren’t the only All-Americans 
for Michigan. Senior Steven 
Bastien finished eighth in the 
decathlon, the lowest finish 
possible to still qualify for All-
American 
honors. 
Bastien’s 

status as an All-American was 
in doubt right up until the last 
event of the decathlon: the 
1,500-meter run.

Bastien entered the race in 

ninth place, but finished the 
race with a personal record time 
of 4:29.82. The time was good 
enough to put Bastien in eighth 
place, just five points ahead of 
Georgia’s Devon Williams.

The 13th place finish for the 

Wolverines is their best since 
1997, and it comes in just the 
third year under Clayton, who 
was also surprised of the success 
early in his tenure at Michigan.

“When I looked at the job 

when I was interviewed, I felt, 
with the tradition Michigan 
had, there was no reason why 
we couldn’t be better than they 
were,” Clayton said. “After I was 
here a year, I thought, ‘Well this 
is going to take a little bit longer.’ 
I thought we were looking at five 
or six years. But obviously the 
athletes have responded.”

Michigan will now look to 

take the momentum from the 
NCAA Outdoor Championships 
into the offseason in multiple 
facets. The coaches will continue 
recruiting and some of the 
athletes themselves will prepare 
to compete in the Olympic Trials 
in July.

Though the 13th-place finish 

was the best in recent history, 
the Wolverines have a lot to look 
forward to. Because with young 
guys like McLaughlin returning 
and the successes of the program 
as a whole, Michigan will have 
plenty of experience to lean on 
as it heads into next season. 

MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD
SPORTS

