Media Credit: Matt Nicholson Sophomore A.J. Acosta, who broke Steve Prefontaine's indoor mile school record by running 3:58.52, has the fastest qualifying time in the 16-man field. Acosta and senior Michael McGrath are the only Ducks who have competed at the NCAA indoor championships before.

Balancing entries for today and Saturday's NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., has been an exercise in point predicting for the Oregon coaching staff.

When deciding which qualified athletes to declare for the meet, the coaches spent a long time deciding if it would be better to take them along for their individual events or to keep them fresh to try to help earn relay points.

"We studied the form charts, we've looked at our kids, we've tried to maximize our points," associate head coach Dan Steele said. "Our entries reflect what we feel is our best opportunity to score points and finish as high as we can."

In particular, Steele said, they did not declare Andrew Wheating, the 14th-fastest qualifier in the 800m, and Matthew Centrowitz, the 18th-fastest qualifier in the mile, because they wanted them fresh to compete for the eighth-ranked men's distance medley team.

The top eight placers score in each event.

Between the men's and women's programs, only two Ducks have competed at the NCAA indoor championships prior to this year - milers A.J. Acosta and Michael McGrath. It will be the first time for the other five individual selections and relay team candidates.

"Anytime you get new people to the meet it means you're doing something right," Steele said. "We've got a young team still and we feel that it's important that they get to the highest level of competition as soon as possible so that they become veterans of those meets."

Two first-timers include Nicole Blood and Ashton Eaton, who both rank second in their respective events, the women's 3,000m and the men's heptathlon. Blood is just three seconds behind top-seed Arianna Lambie of Stanford and Eaton less that 50 points behind Northern Iowa's Raven Cepeda. Between them and Acosta, the top-seeded miler, the Ducks are looking to score a lot of points.

"We're expecting big things out of those kids," Steele said.

Since the initial selections were announced Monday, Keshia Baker was added to the 400m, giving Oregon five entries on the women's side - sophomores Baker and Blood, freshmen Melissa Gergel and Alex Kosinski and the distance medley relay team - to go with the men's group of Acosta, McGrath, Eaton and both the 4x400m and distance medley relays.

Despite the relatively small contingent, the Oregon coaches have high expectations for both squads.

"We think we've got two very good teams. I think we have top-10 teams on both sides," Steele said. "We really feel it can be anywhere from fourth place to 10th place depending how the kids compete and getting a few breaks."

bjansson@dailyemerald.com

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