Full Squad Travels For Televised Pepsi Team Invite 

Published by UW SID on April 7th, 2016

SEATTLE - Week three of the outdoor track season takes the Huskies to Eugene for the first time this year, as the annual Pepsi Team Invitational is set for this Saturday, Apr. 9, at Oregon’s Hayward Field. The Pac-12 Networks will be live televising the majority of the meet on both Pac-12 Washington and Pac-12 Oregon. The field for this year’s Pepsi Team Invite will feature the Huskies and Ducks, along with USC and Penn State.

While the first week of the outdoor season was geared towards the sprinters and field event athletes, and last week’s Stanford Invite was heavy on the distance events, the Pepsi Team Invite will see the Huskies put all the pieces together, with a number of athletes competing in their primary events for the first time this outdoor season.

The meet will begin with the men’s discus at 10:50 a.m. on Saturday and the first track race will be the women’s 5,000-meters at 12 noon. The television broadcast window starts at 1 p.m. and lasts through the end of the meet at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The Pepsi Team Invite uses a unique scoring system where only two athletes per school are allowed to score in each event. The point system is 9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for individual events, and 9-7-6-5 for relays.

In the Ducks, Trojans, and Huskies, the Pepsi meet has the top three finishers from the men’s Pac-12 Championship standings a year ago. Oregon is ranked No. 2 nationally, USC is ranked 13th, Penn State is 17th, and the Husky men are currently 30th. USC is ranked second on the women’s side, while Oregon is sixth, Penn State is No. 41 and UW is No. 55.

A perusal of the entries on the women’s side features intrigue in just about every race. Junior All-American Kennadi Bouyer is entered in the 100-meters for the first time andCydnicia Wade will be in the 200-meters, both going against the extremely deep Trojans lineup. In the hurdles, senior Kimberly Stueckle is entered for what would be her 2016 debut, coming off a foot injury; she and senior Naivasha Sophusson Smith were both Pac-12 finalists last year.

In the women’s 800-meters, All-American Baylee Mires and Hannah Derby will challenge NCAA Champion Raevyn Rogers of Oregon. Maddie Meyers, Amy-Eloise Neale, andAnna Maxwell all went sub-4:20 in the 1,500-meters last week at Stanford and they will race the distance again on Saturday. Two-time West Prelim qualifier Katie Knight will step up to 5,000-meters, along with Kaylee Flanagan and Emily Hamlin. After running nearly matching times in the 1,500-meters two weeks ago, and the 5,000-meters last week, freshman Charlotte Prouse and sophomore Izzi Batt-Doyle will go in the steeplechase along with Grace Hodge.