FAYETTEVILLE -- From his Razorbacks winning their first NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship, Lance Harter has learned to go with the Flo.
Going into last week's NCAA outdoor in Eugene, Ore., the folks at the FloTrack website apparently knew more about the Razorbacks than he did, Harter said of Arkansas' 72-62 margin over Oregon.
"FloTrack forecast us to score 70 points," Harter said. "It was like, 70 points? These guys are crazy! We can't score 70 points. Obviously I was proved wrong. So they must have known something more than I did. Every time we thought we could do something, we exceeded it."
Senior distance champion Dominique Scott couldn't exceed the maximum 20 first-place points she scored in Thursday's 10,000 meters and Saturday's 5,000 meters. But the style, winning the 10,000 by 11 seconds and the 5,000 by three seconds, comfortably exceeded expectations. It seemed she broke away without breaking a sweat.
"She just went along for the ride in both races knowing that her finish was as good as or superior to anybody," Harter said. "And she proved that quite comfortably. Enough where she could blow a kiss to her husband [Cameron Efurd] on one turn and wave to her family on another and wave to the crowd. She was all over the place."
Late during the 10,000, Scott paid as much attention to freshman teammate Lexi Weeks winning the pole vault and sophomore teammate Taliyah Brooks' surprising third in the long jump as her own event.
"Dominique actually was cheering for them running around because Taliyah was on one side long jumping and Lexi was on the other side pole vaulting," Harter said. "And they were stopping and cheering her as she was going around the track 25 times. It was very much a very special team spirit. We scored 26 points in a matter of 45 minutes. We were making a statement here, 'Catch us if you can.' "
Oregon took up the challenge.
"They scored 58 points on Saturday," Harter said. "Their sprint crew just went ballistic. I was starting to get a little nervous. We knew we had pretty good points at the end of the meet, but would they be enough?"
Scott had to exceed ESPN's expectations in Saturday's 5,000 for Arkansas to deter the Ducks.
"I heard later that they [the ESPN crew on Thursday's telecast] said, 'Dominique is going to win this 10,000 and it's the last race of her career as a Razorback,' " Harter said. "So people were saying, 'Are you not going to run Dom in the 5,000?' And I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' They said, 'According to media this is Dom's last race.' "
The network was off-base, missing Harter's long-announced intention for Scott to double.
Scott's 5,000 triumph clinched the meet 64-62 before senior Taylor Ellis-Watson's superb anchor leg on the 1,600-meter relay resulted in a runner-up finish behind Texas. That iced the title just like Scott and Ellis-Watson did in Arkansas' NCAA indoor championship in 2015 in Fayetteville.
Sports on 06/15/2016