RAIDER INVITATIONAL
Friday – 4 p.m. Field Events, 6 p.m. Track Events
Saturday – 10 a.m. Field Events, 12:20 p.m. Track Events
Live Results | Meet Schedule | Meet Program

ASHLAND – With just two weekends of meets left prior to the Cascade Conference Championships, the Southern Oregon University track and field team will be home on Friday and Saturday to host the fourth annual Raider Invitational.

Friday's field events begin at 4 p.m., and running starts at 6 p.m. with the 3,000-meter steeplechases, mile runs and 5,000 meters on the slate. Saturday's field events open at 10 a.m., while the running events start at 12:20 p.m. with the 4x100-meter relays and will finish at approximately 2:55 p.m. with the 4x400 relays. Participating schools include Clark (Wash.), Corban, Humboldt State (Calif.), Lane, Northwest Christian, Oregon Tech, Redwoods (Calif.) and Siskiyous (Calif.).

Dotson, Sprauer set for Multis (Live Results | Meet Info): Raider Stadium will also be home this week to the Cascade Conference Multi-Event Championships, which will start at 10 a.m. on Thursday and Friday. There are 13 entries in the women's heptathlon, including SOU sophomore Loghan Sprauer, and nine in the men's decathlon, including SOU junior Joseph Dotson. The top-eight placers in each will earn points toward team scores for the CCC Championships, set for May 11-12 in Hermiston.

Sprauer is making her first appearance in the meet, but the score of 4,363 she posted on March 27 at American River College (Calif.) currently ranks fourth in the NAIA and was the fourth-best in school history. Oregon Tech's Amber Von Essen was last year's runner-up with 4,390 points, making her the top returning placer.

The men's decathlon field is likely to be the best of any conference in the country. Oregon Tech's Seth Gretz headlines it as the two-time defending CCC champion, but Dotson beat him out as last year's national runner-up with a career-best score of 6,732. Dotson has placed second to Gretz at the conference level the last two years, and was also a fifth-place finisher in the NAIA as a freshman.

Perkinson to Azusa (Live Results): Raider senior Jessa Perkinson will run the 5,000 meters for the first time this season at 8 p.m. Thursday in Azusa Pacific's Bryan Clay Invitational, where she'll race almost exclusively against NCAA Division I competition. She hasn't competed in the 5K since winning the NAIA outdoor title last May, and she'll aim to break the school record of 16:37.47 she established while winning the CCC title two weeks before that in a race she dominated by a margin of 41 seconds. This season, she already owns the NAIA's top 10K time (34:35.33) and the fifth-fastest 1,500 time (4:30.65). The 5K time to beat on the NAIA performance list is 16:28.09.

USTFCCAA Rankings: In Wednesday's latest NAIA computer rankings, generated by the USTFCCCA, the Raider women were No. 9 and the Raider men No. 20.

The women have the top ranking among CCC teams after adding another automatic-qualifying mark for the NAIA Championships last week – Arianna Daniel's 400-meter time of 56.70 seconds at the UC Davis Woody Wilson Classic, which put her at No. 9 on the national list. SOU's other individual auto marks belong to Perkinson, and it has another in the 4x100 with a time of 47.57 that ranks 10th. The Raiders also have provisional-qualifying marks with Tara Crosswhite in the 400 hurdles (1:04.47, 16th), Bree Weber in the 3K steeplechase (11:21.22, 6th), Sprauer in the hepthatlon (4,363, 4th), and the 4x400 relay (3:55.33).

SOU's men are sitting at two auto qualifiers, both produced by returning All-Americans: Kevin Poteracke in the 3K steeplechase (9:13.02, 2nd) and Zach Beltz in the long jump (23-8 ¼, 5th). They have six provisional-qualifying marks: Dotson in the decathlon (6,251, 5th), Rhett Gonzalez in the 110 hurdles (14.77, 16th), Rey Vega in the 100 (10.65, 18th), Kevin Tunnell in the shot put (50-11 ½, 20th), Eli Chapman in the 200 (21.59, 27th), and the 4x100 relay (41.70, 15th).

Coming Up: The Raiders wrap up the regular season next week – Friday at the Pacific Twilight in Forest Grove, and Friday and Saturday at the Oregon State High Performance Meet in Corvallis. After a week off, they'll head to the CCC Championships. The NAIA Outdoor Championships will be held May 24-26 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.