EUGENE—As the crowd of runners in the men’s 800-meter race turned to the final stretch at Hayward Field on Friday afternoon, Oregon senior Matthew Erickson found himself in the back of the group.

Although the Oregon women won this year’s NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, they come into this meet ranked 5th. The Duck's strongest event is the 1500 meter race, where Klaudia Kazimierska is seeded 6th, Silan Ayyildiz is seeded 7th, and Mia Barnett is seeded 21st of the 24 qualifiers.