FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — So much for the Oregon coronation.
Instead, Texas A&M was the school that made track and field history.
Justin Oliver held on for second place as the anchor in the 1,600-meter relay, giving the Aggies the men’s team title at the NCAA track and field championships Saturday. Texas A&M also won the women’s title, becoming the first school since 1990 to win both outdoor championships.
The Oregon men were seeking a rare “Triple Crown” after winning NCAA titles in cross country and indoor track and field earlier this season. Nobody’s done that since Arkansas in 1998-99. The relay — the last event of the outdoor meet — knocked the Ducks out of first place.
“When it got to the 300 mark and I saw I was still second place, I see the finish line, I see the trophy at the finish line waiting on me,” Oliver said. “We’re the national champions.”
The Aggies finished with 48 points. If Texas A&M had finished one spot lower in the relay, it would have ended up in a four-way tie for the title with Florida, Florida State and Oregon.
The women’s finish was less tense. Texas A&M ended up with 50 points, seven ahead of Oregon.
Texas A&M had never won any team title before this meet. Coach Pat Henry is in his fifth year there after coming over from LSU. He won 27 NCAA team championships while coaching the LSU men and women, including 15 outdoor titles.
“This one is something we’ve been working very hard to do,” Henry said. “This one is very, very special to me because it’s a new one.”
Henry was the last coach to sweep the men’s and women’s outdoor titles, at LSU in 1990.
Oregon led both team competitions going into Saturday, and the Ducks earned 10 more big points when Andrew Wheating won the 800.
Wheating passed Tevan Everett of Texas just inches before the finish to win in 1 minute, 46.21 seconds. Everett lunged forward across the finish line and fell down on the other side, but to no avail. He finished in 1:46.27.
“I just wanted the 10 points,” Wheating said. “I was just hoping my calf wouldn’t rip apart.”
That was it for the Oregon men, and Texas A&M made up major ground in the triple jump when four Aggies combined to earn 18 points.
Florida State won the relay in 2:59.99 and Texas A&M’s team of Tran Howell, Bryan Miller, Kyle Dykhuizen and Oliver held off Baylor for second.
Air Force junior Sara Neubauer became the first Falcon in 13 years to claim All-America honors in multiple events at the same meet with her seventh-place finish in the discus. Neubauer finished eighth in the shot put Thursday. Marcus Nichols had been the last Air Force athlete to earn points in multiple events at a single meet, in the pole vault and decathlon in 1996.
Nebauer qualified for the finals with a toss of 161 feet, then had a best toss of 163 feet, 5 inches in the finals. Texas Tech’s D’Andra Carter won the national title at 182-6.
