The Jim Click Shootout gets underway Saturday at Drachman Stadium with host Arizona dueling with male and female track teams from USC, TCU, Purdue, Minnesota and Oklahoma State.
The USC women are ranked No. 1 in the nation and Minnesota is 34th. The Wildcat men are ranked 18th with TCU at 29th, Purdue at 30th and USC at 34th.
The meet’s key duel will take place just before 9 p.m., when the title and team standings might still be undecided. That’s when the Arizona women and men’s 4x400-meter relay teams will face strong challenges.
Arizona’s 4x400 women’s relay team finished 12th in the NCAA championships last year, and three of those four runners have returned to the team: Diana Gajda, Tatum Waggoner and Karolina Pahlitzsch. Gajda is recovering from an injury and won’t run on the “A” relay team, according to UA head coach Fred Harvey.
Harvey and sprints coach Francesca Green will likely tap sophomore transfer Shannon Meisberger and freshman Neysia Howard to complete the 4x400 quartet.
The UA women’s team will have its hands full contending with USC’s athletes, who won the 2018 NCAA outdoor championship.
The Trojans’ deep corps of sprinters is led by Twanisha Terry, who blazed to the NCAA indoor title in the 60-meter dash last month.
The men’s prospects in the 4x400 relay got a boost two weeks ago when junior Zakee Washington ran his fastest time ever in the individual 400-meter event. His time of 46.38, which Harvey called “a real nice breakthrough,” lifted him to the 10th-quickest time in the UA record books.
Washington will likely team up in the relay with sophomores Umajesty Williams and Maksims Sincukovs and freshman James Smith. Williams ranks sixth on the all-time list at 46.14 for the 400.
“The idea is to get them to compete together multiple times,” Harvey said, and to have them post a fast time to qualify for the first round of the NCAA championships.
Four of UA’s relay athletes will compete for the first time this season in the 400-meter hurdles, an event for which Harvey is known. Pahlitzsch and Meisberger are expected to pile up vital team points for the women. Smith and Sincukovs, who placed seventh in last year’s NCAA finals, will run for the men.
The Wildcats got a stellar performance last weekend from Bailey Roth, who ran 8:40.69 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, a time that currently ranks as the fourth best on the NCAA list. Distance runners coach James Li said Roth will run the 1,500 meters on Saturday.
Three Wildcats who earned All-American honors in NCAA indoor season will be in action. Jordan Geist will compete in the discus, hammer throw and the shot put, his favorite event. Carlos Villarreal, a 1,500-meter specialist, will run the 800 meters. Lilian Lowe will lead a strong group of UA women athletes in the high jump.
Multi-event athletes from the six teams will compete Friday in the decathlon and heptathlon at Drachman Stadium.
