Freshman From Ohio, Competing Unattached, May Have Found A Home In A New Event

By Lori Shontz for DyeStat 

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Katie Clute arrived at Oregon from Ohio with seven state high school track and cross country championships to her name. She also arrived with experience as a center midfielder on the soccer team, the point guard for the basketball team and a distance specialist for the swim team.

All that experience jumping and moving in different directions, the coaches realized, could make her an excellent candidate for the steeplechase. And the distance, 3,000 meters, was perfect for a middle-distance runner making the transition from high school to college.

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“I don’t have as much of that strength as the older runners who have a lot more training and mileage under their belt,” Clute said. “Also, I’m not quite the speediest for mid-distance. I’m OK at it, but it’s not my best thing.”

Clute, a freshman running unattached Friday at the Oregon Preview at Hayward Field, competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for the first time and won the event in 10:18.25. She ran alone most of the race – runner-up Kendall Martin of Oregon finished in 10:40.05 – and coped well with a tumble at the water jump, popping back up and losing a minimal amount of time.

Clute pronounced the experience fun – and even the fall couldn’t ruin it.

“I’m not glad it happened, but I’m OK with it because I think coming into this, I was nervous about that happening,” she said. “And now it happened, and I know it’s not the end of the world. It’s OK. I can just get back up and keep going.”

Clute said whether she redshirts for the outdoor season is still undetermined. She is certain, though, that her experience in multiple sports is paying off.

“Doing different movements, not just the same exact thing, developing different muscles and stuff – I definitely think that helps,” she said. 

Last season, Oregon’s Giuliano Scasso cut it closer than he wanted. He ran his personal record in the steeplechase in April, but he never ran faster, and he was the next-to-last person into the field for the NCAA West Regional. 

This season, he wanted to avoid that stress. He likely set himself up for the regional field, running a PR of 8:49.80, five seconds faster than his time last year, to win the men’s steeplechase by nearly a second over Mac Franks.

“This way, I have a little more freedom with the rest of the season,” he said. “I just want to avoid chasing the time and pull up to Pac12s, the last one, then go to regionals fit and ready to go, to get that national qualifier.”

Scasso could have run five seconds faster, he said, “if it wasn’t for being so messy and kind of loopy.” One problem: He smacked his right knee on the backstretch barrier after a “bad hurdle,” nearly falling but catching himself.  The other: “And I don’t know what it was, but I nearly got into workout mode and nearly did the outside loop rather than the water barrier.” 

Oregon senior Shelby Moran won the women’s hammer throw by 48 feet, and then she spent the next half hour or so filling in holes on the hammer field outside Hayward Field.

That’s a ritual after every practice, and it’s one that’s important to Moran and her teammates.

“They tore up this grass this summer because the drainage wasn’t right, and they got it all nice and good,” she said. “And now after every practice, me and my teammates fill in the holes to keep it nice.”

Moran, who finished ninth last season at the NCAA championships, threw 218-7 (66.62m) on her sixth throw, which was the second longest in Division I so far this season.

It’s an improvement from her season opener – a week ago at the OSU PNW Invite, she beat the competition by 20 feet with a throw of 210-10 (64.27m) – but still not what Moran considers a big throw.

She said she is recovering from Covid, so she’s been working lately on her technique. She still needs a few meters to get what she considers a big throw, 68 to 70 meters.

“It is a step in the right direction,” she said. “It wasn’t horrible today. But I did feel a lot of potential there, and that’s why I’m a little upset.”

She was happy, however, that she could feel she was close to a breakthrough on her technique. “It’s gonna be good, I can tell you that,” she said. “Postseason will be good.”

Oregon also got a victory in the women’s javelin with junior Kohana Nakato throwing 163-6 (49.84m) on her third throw to beat the field. Runner-up Maryann Ackerman of Oregon State was nearly 13 feet behind.

As soon as she won the competition, Nakato took off on her victory lap – and while it wasn’t quite a dead sprint, it was certainly one of the faster laps. Nakato – who started her track career at Summit High in Bend as a sprinter and jumper – attributed that to the adrenaline. “I was feeling good,” she said, laughing. “I’m like, you know, I even can get a little workout in.” 

This season, she’d like to qualify for the NCAA regionals, and she’d like to score again at the Pac-12 championships.

Nakato capped her victory lap by tossing a T-shirt to one of the only fans in the stands, her dad. She still had plenty of adrenaline, and it was a strong throw.

“I definitely overestimated how far my dad was,” she said, laughing again. “It went over his head.”

Other field event winners on Friday: Grayson Fleming, who was competing unattached, in the men’s hammer throw (64.58m, 211-10); Jack Normand of Oregon in the men’s high jump (2.10m, 6-10.75); Ryan Rieckmann of Eastern Washington with a personal record in the men’s javelin (71.51, 234-7); and Cheyla Scott of Oregon in the women’s high jump (1.75m, 5-8.75).

Other track event winners on Friday: Maddy Elmore of Oregon, serving as a pacer for teammate Anika Thompson, who was hoping for a regional qualifying time in the women’s 5,000 meters, won the event in 16:13.02, two seconds ahead of Thompson, who took 30 seconds off her outdoor PR. The men’s 5,000 victory went to Owen Serricchio of the UO Run Club in a PR of 14:19.38.