Michigan
NCAA Outdoor Championships
Liskowitz, Owens Head Deep Lineup for NCAA Outdoor Championships
6/7/2021 10:33:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
THIS WEEK
NCAA Outdoor Championships (Eugene, Ore.)
Meet Central | Live Results
Wednesday, June 9 -- Day 1, 1 p.m. PDT | Live Video Hub
TV: ESPN3 / Decathlon events (starting at 1 p.m. PDT); shot put (7:10 p.m. PDT)
TV: ESPNU / Track events (5 p.m. PDT)
TV: ESPN2 / Track events (6 p.m. PDT)
Thursday, June 10 -- Day 2, 9:30 a.m. PDT | Live Video Hub
TV: ESPN3 / Decathlon events (starting at 9:30 a.m. PDT)
TV: ESPN2 / Track events (3:30 p.m. PDT)
Friday, June 11 -- Day 3, 5:11 p.m. PDT | Live Video Hub
TV: ESPN2 / Track events (5 p.m. PDT)
• Watch: 'Ferrari' Mindset Fuels Michigan Decathlete Owens
• Social Media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- On the strength of multiple individual title contenders and one of the deepest lineups in recent program history, the No. 20 University of Michigan men's track and field team will challenge for national glory at the NCAA Outdoor Championships this Wednesday through Friday (June 9-11) in Eugene, Ore., to cap the collegiate outdoor campaign.
Big Ten champion school record-holders Ayden Owens in the decathlon and Andrew Liskowitz in the shot put headline a group of nine Wolverine entries set to compete for the first time at the redesigned and renovated Hayward Field -- site of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials later this month -- on the campus of the University of Oregon.
The Michigan lineup -- its largest dating back to at least 1996 -- will also feature Heath Baldwin in the decathlon and All-American John Meyer in the shot put alongside Owens and Liskowitz, respectively, and has multiple 3,000-meter steeplechase qualifiers in Joost Plaetinck and Christian Hubaker.
Rounding out the crew from Ann Arbor will be All-American Tom Dodd at 1,500 meters, Josh Zeller in the 110-meter hurdles, and the 4x400 relay with a pool of Owens, Dubem Amene, Roland Amarteifio, Vail Hartman, Austin Lin and Mason Mahacek.
With so many entries, the Wolverines will be aiming to not just log their third top-20 national finish in the past five editions of the outdoor national meet, but to equal or improve upon the 13th-place high-water mark of the Jerry Clayton era (2014-present) achieved in 2016. That finish is tied for the program's best dating back to a sixth-place showing in 1961.
All four days of the NCAA Outdoor Championships will be carried on the ESPN family of networks as part of expansive wall-to-wall coverage of the meet. All decathlon events and field events are scheduled to receive their own dedicated feeds on the ESPN3 digital platform, with the action on the track carried in full via linear television on ESPN2 or ESPNU, depending on the day.
Live results are available through Flash Results, and the official social media channels of the track and field program will be providing updates throughout the weekend.
Spectators will be allowed but with a maximum of 4,400 per day. Priority will be given to guests of participating student-athletes and coaches.
How the NCAA Outdoor Championships Work
Each of the teams represented at the NCAA Outdoor Championships will field student-athletes in at least one of the 21 events on the meet program. Student-athletes will compete against each other in each of those events, with points awarded to their respective teams based on how high they finish in the top eight of their event.
Event winners will get 10 points for their teams, with the runners-up receiving eight points. Third place earns six points, fourth place gets five points, fifth place receives four points, three points are awarded for sixth place, seventh place nets two points, and eighth place earns one point.
The team that accumulates the most points from its student-athletes will be crowned the team champion.
Additionally, All-America honors are up for grabs from the USTFCCCA. Those who finish first through eighth in their respective events will earn first-team recognition, with second-team distinctions going to those who place ninth through 16th. Individuals who finish 17th or lower, or fail to record a mark or a time by way of disqualification, not starting or not finishing, earn honorable mention status.
Event Previews
Decathlon (Wednesday and Thursday) -- Owens enters the meet with the national title in his crosshairs, seeded No. 2 out of 24 competitors. His school-record 8,238-point performance to win the Big Ten title was among the best decathlon outputs in collegiate history, and he will look to build on it in Eugene as he simultaneously gears up for a run at the Olympics qualifying standard.
Over the course of 10 events in two days, there are numerous numbers to watch as the competition progresses. Among them:
• 8,350 points - The qualifying standard for the Tokyo Olympics
• 8,300 points - The best score ever posted by a Big Ten student-athlete during collegiate competition (Wisconsin's Zach Ziemek, 2016)
• 10.34 - The fastest 100 meters ever run in a collegiate decathlon; Owens ran 10.40 at Big Tens
• 46.28 - The fastest 400 meters ever run in a collegiate decathlon; Owens ran 46.78 at Big Tens
• 13.68 - The fastest 110-meter hurdles ever run in a collegiate decathlon; Owens owns a 13.76 best
Michigan decathletes have a recent record of performing their best at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, as previous All-Americans Steven Bastien (8,015 points) and Jack Lint (7,738 points) both achieved significant lifetime bests en route to fourth-place finishes in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
Another Wolverine will be hoping to tap into that energy in Baldwin, who enters with the No. 14 seed after posting a 7,611-point effort for fifth place in his second-ever decathlon at the Big Ten Championships. He has a chance to make a run at the 7,900-point qualifying standard for the Olympic Trials, or at least to get as close as possible to potentially earn an invitation to the meet.
Shot Put (Wednesday, 7:10 p.m. PDT) -- Wednesday will mark the end of an era in Michigan throwing as Liskowitz competes in his fourth straight NCAA Outdoor Championships in what will be his collegiate finale. After qualifying in 2017 as the only freshman in the field en route to a 23rd-place finish, he finished 14th for second-team All-America honors in 2018 and eighth in 2019 for first-team plaudits. He now enters with the opportunity to claim what was denied him, the national leader, in the winter of 2020 due to the global pandemic: a national title. He enters with momentum after twice exceeding 20.20m at the East Preliminaries, becoming just the second man in meet history to achieve that feat. He was second-best of all throwers in the Prelims, both East and West, and is ranked No. 3 nationally over the course of the entire outdoor season at 20.70m (67-11). He could also threaten his own school record of 21.15m (69-4.75) from the summer of 2019.
And just as was the case in both 2017 and 2018, Liskowitz is not alone in the field. Now in the same veteran leader role Grant Cartwright played for him, Liskowitz will be joined by indoor first-team All-American Meyer. Though he did not reach his full potential at the East Prelims, he occupies the No. 4 spot on the 2021 outdoor list at 20.48m (67-2.25). He is just 17 centimeters shy of the Olympic Trials qualifying standard, which he could also knock out if the conditions are right.
After the two of them became the first teammates to both throw farther than 20.30m in the same competition last month, They now could become the pair of teammates with the farthest combined NCAA Championships throws -- a mark presently held at 41.18m by Arizona State's Ryan Whiting and Jordan Clarke from 2010 -- and just the second pair of teammates to surpass 20 meters in the same competition. Only UCLA's Nicholas Scarvelis and Braheme Days accomplished that previously in 2016.
3,000-meter steeplechase (Semifinals Wednesday, 5:32 p.m. PDT / Final Friday, 5:24 p.m. PDT) -- Before Plaetinck and Hubaker punched their tickets from the East Prelims, not since 1983 had Michigan had two men qualify for the NCAA Championships steeplechase in Brian Diemer and Gerard Donakowski. That was the year Diemer won the NCAA title in a school-record 8:26.95 before going on to claim Olympic bronze one year later. Both of the 2021 entrants are ranked outside of the 12 that will advance to the final -- Plaetinck at No. 14 in 8:39.26 and Hubaker at No. 22 in 8:43.38 -- but both men have run their best in the biggest moments during their breakthrough spring. Plaetinck was the Big Ten bronze medalist and clinched an automatic berth to the meet from the NCAA East Prelims, and Hubaker was a close fourth at Big Tens and ran a strong race at the East Prelims as well.
In a season of firsts for the U-M steeplechase squad, they could add another with either multiple All-Americans or if both were to run faster than 8:40.
1,500 meters (Semifinals Wednesday, 5:16 p.m. PDT / Final Friday, 5:11 p.m. PDT) -- In his first year at Michigan, Dodd has found great success in "3:57." He twice ran 3:57 miles at the NCAA Indoor Championships this winter en route to first-team All-America honors, and he clinched his berth to the NCAA Outdoor Championships at the East Prelims with a 3:39.60 time at 1,500 meters that converts to 3:57.17 for a full mile.
Just as he encountered indoors, he should once again expect a requirement of sub-four mile equivalent performances in the hunt for All-America honors with multiple NCAA champions and collegiate record-holders also entered in the field.
110-meter hurdles (Semifinals Wednesday, 6:02 p.m. PDT / Final Friday, 5:42 p.m. PDT) -- Due to the lightning-quick nature of the event, perhaps no current school record rests on a razor's edge quite like Thomas Wilcher's 13.52 (+4.2m/s) program best from 1985 in the men's 110-meter hurdles. Zeller has threatened the mark several times in the past two competitions with 13.60, 13.64 and 13.68 efforts, and the highest-quality field the outdoor freshman has ever faced could propel him even faster. He has the 19th-fastest time of the 24 qualifiers.
This will be Zeller's first appearance at the NCAA Championships, but it is not his first time on a big stage. Prior to arriving in Ann Arbor, Zeller won the 2019 European U20 Championships title in the 110-meter hurdles, running faster in each of the three successive rounds, following up on the England Athletics U20 title he won earlier in the summer.
4x400 relay (Semifinals Wednesday, 8:18 p.m. PDT / Final Friday, 7:21 p.m. PDT) -- For the second edition of the NCAA Outdoor Championships in a row, the Wolverines' 4x400 relay team advanced in a nail-biter of an effort at the NCAA East Prelims. And for the second time in a row, they will hope to emerge from it at nationals with All-America honors. They enter as slightly smaller underdogs this time around, ranked 22nd of 24 teams instead of 23rd.
Hartman, the man who clinched Michigan's 2019 berth to NCAAs with a lean at the line, is the lone returner from that squad that ultimately earned second-team All-America honors. He will likely be joined by Big Ten 400-meter hurdles bronze medalist Amarteifio, breakout freshman Amene and impact grad transfer Lin. Though the team qualified to nationals with a roster that included Owens, he will likely focus on the 10 events of the decathlon.
Players Mentioned
