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Another crowd pleaser - The Register GuardPublished by
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Another crowd pleaser - The Register GuardPublished by
By Curtis Anderson The Register-Guard On his victory lap, the first of his UO career at Hayward Field, sophomore A.J. Acosta stopped in front of the East Grandstand and lobbed a T-shirt into a small, but enthusiastic group of grade schoolers. It was their promised reward for providing Acosta, and the rest of the UO runners in the 5,000 meters at the Pepsi Team Invitational on Saturday, with loud and unwavering support throughout the entire race. They pounded the wooden bleachers. They chanted “Go Ducks!” on each lap. And, when Acosta made his final move with 100 meters to go, barely edging in front of Minnesota’s Hassan Mead, he used their shouts of encouragement as inspiration to hold off Mead by six-hundredths of a second. Acosta hit the tape in 13 minutes, 57.81 seconds, a PR by nearly 13 seconds. Mead settled for second at 13:57.87. “I couldn’t let those kids down,” said Acosta, who fought through some breathing difficulties with about 1,000 meters left in the race. “I told them before the race, you have to keep us fired up, I want to hear you, otherwise no T-shirt, and they held up their word. So I gave them the T-shirt and everybody was happy.” It was that kind of day for the UO men’s track team. Despite a slight drizzle and bone-chilling cold, a crowd of 5,212 watched the Ducks unload on their rivals from Penn State, Minnesota and Washington by scoring 230 points to easily collect their 14th title in the 19th edition of the Pepsi meet. The Nittany Lions took second with 150 points, followed by Minnesota at 140½, and Washington at 125½. “This meet was about competing,” said Dan Steele, UO associate director of track and field. “We told the kids that every point matters, we want you to dive for the finish line, and they did a good job of responding.” Oregon won 12 of the.... Read MoreHashtags#pepsi-invite #curtis-anderson #register-guard #aj-acosta #hassan-mead #dan-steele #oregon #ducks #nittany-lions
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