In the final meet of the regular season, the west coast track powerhouses will come together to compete at the MPSF Indoor Championship starting tomorrow. With seven top 25 ranked teams in the NCAA competing under one roof inside the Dempsey, this year’s MPSF meet is looking to be an exciting showdown. Here are some of the top storylines of the weekend:

Oregon Men Will Attempt a Fast DMR Without Cheserek

Last weekend, the Oregon men were bumped outside of the top 12 teams headed to the NCAA Indoor Championships. A historic distance medley relay race led by Oklahoma State at the Alex Wilson Invite brought five teams into the top 12 and pushed the Ducks to No. 13 on the NCAA qualifying list. The team of Blake Haney, Ben Thiel, Niki Franzmair and Edward Cheserek ran 9:30.95 at the Razorback Invitational in January, but unless the Ducks run in the low 9:30-range Friday night, the defending NCAA Championship team will not be competing at this year’s meet in March. 

Even without nine-time NCAA Champion Cheserek, the quartet listed on the MPSF heat sheets is definitely capable of running under the time needed to qualify. 3:56-miler Blake Haney will lead off the 1200m leg and hand the stick to 48-second 400m runner Ben Thiel. The 400m leg will hand off to 1:49 800m runner Grant Grosvenor and eventually anchor leg Sam Prakel, a 3:57 miler and NCAA finalist. The time to beat is 9:30.66, which would knock No. 12 Villanova out of the running and secure a spot for the Ducks to compete in Birmingham. 

NCAA Runner-Up Elise Cranny Will Return to the 3K

After an injury-riddled fall, Stanford All American Elise Cranny finally made her return to the track at the Iowa State Classic two weeks ago, where she ran a new personal best in the mile at 4:38. As a freshman phenom, Cranny finished second to NCAA Champion Dominique Scott in the 3K at the NCAA Indoor Championships. It was an unforgettable race that included a huge personal best of 8:58.88 for Cranny, which also set the American junior record. This weekend, Cranny is entered to compete in the same event that earned her a runner-up finish on the biggest stage. She will run the 3K once again in a field that includes numerous All Americans and overall stacked competition.

Re-watch Cranny's reaction when she finished second to Scott at NCAAs last year:

Aisling Cuffe Will Run First Track Race Since 2014

That stacked 3K field includes Stanford teammate Aisling Cuffe who has also suffered from the injury rollercoaster, which makes this race her first on the track since 2014. 2014 was a special year for Cuffe as she ran the third-fastest 5K all-time at the Payton Jordan Invitational in 15:11, setting new school and Pac-12 records. She also finished second at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and fourth at the USATF Championships. In the fall of 2015, she returned to compete for the Cardinal in cross country where she won her second Pac-12 XC title. 

Cuffe will compete against stiff competition that includes a number of top NCAA contenders, notably Alli Cash of Oregon, Sarah Feeny of Utah, Vanessa Fraser of Stanford, Maddie Meyers and Katie Knight of Washington, and Bethan Knights of Cal.  

Izaic Yorks, Sean McGorty Will Make for Fast Mile

The sub-four minute milers are poised to throw down yet another barrier-breaking performance in the Dempsey as both are fresh off of standout performances in their respective events. Yorks helped the Huskies run the No. 2 NCAA mark in the DMR last weekend as the squad finished second to Oklahoma State in a new school record of 9:27.19 at Alex Wilson. He ran a DMR several weeks ago at the Dempsey where he split 3:57 as the anchor leg and since then, Yorks has collected personal bests of 1:47 in the 800 and 7:50 in the 3K. Watch the DMR performance in this week's Tasty Race of the Week:



McGorty will be running his first mile of the NCAA indoor season this weekend, and boasts a mile PR of 3:59 from last year. He ran a personal best of 7:48 at the Iowa State Classic 3K two weeks ago and anchored the Cardinal to a No. 4 distance medley relay performance at Penn State National. As the only mile race of the indoor season, it will be interesting to see what the sophomore throws down on Saturday. 

A Loaded Men’s 3K Led By Colorado

After running the 5K at the Husky Classic two weeks ago, a number of Colorado runners will be returning to take on the shorter 3K distance, notably All Americans Morgan Pearson, Ammar Moussa, Pierce Murphy, Connor Winter and John Dressel. Murphy ran the sixth-fastest 5K of 2016 (13:40) at the Husky Classic. Pearson is currently No. 16 on the 5K list and Moussa is No. 24 from their Husky performances. None of them, other than freshman Dressel, have run a 3K so far this season so it will be exciting to see if they can run fast enough to crack into the top NCAA qualifier list, which would be in the 7:52-53 range. A runner who could potentially mix things up is Portland’s Reid Buchanan who is fresh off of a 3K PR of 7:54 at the Husky Classic. Oregon freshman and sub-four minute miler Matthew Maton could also contend well after running 7:59 in his debut at the Husky Classic. 


Tune in to watch all the MPSF Championship action LIVE on FloTrack starting Friday at 4:30 p.m. PT!