We told you Friday about a busy weekend in Cougar spring sports, and while you already know about baseball's big weekend -- no word yet on whether ESPN's field projector Jeremy Mills is duly impressed -- there are plenty of other results to report.
First, Jeshua Anderson continued his march to defend his NCAA championship in the 400-meter hurdles, winning another Pac-10 title by obliterating the competition by nearly a second and a half. His mark of 48.90 seconds was his best of the season and is also the fastest time in the NCAA this year. Oh, and it's also the fourth-fastest time in that event by any American this year.
To what does Anderson credit his strong track performance?
"I was looking to run in the 48's," Anderson said post race. "Once I got past the wind in the first part of the race, I finished strong in the last segment. I've been doing strength workouts for football and they have been showing in my track performance. I perform better in championship meets and am looking for my time to improve in the next meets. I am not taking any race lightly, I stay hungry."
Somewhere, Paul Wulff is smiling broadly.
Anderson also led the 4 x 400-meter relay team to a second-place finish -- Anderson nosed out Oregon on the anchor leg by two 1000ths of a second -- and finished fifth in the 400-meter dash.
Also winning conference championships were Trent Arrivey (high jump) and Lorraine King (400-meter hurdles). The men finished in fourth place -- tying their highest finish ever -- and the women finished ninth. Full results and details here.
Golfer Kevin Tucker failed to advance to the national championship tournament, derailed by a poor second day at the west regionals. His three-round score of 222 left him at +6 and in a tie for 62nd out of 75 golfers. He would have had to put together the tournament of his life to advance -- the automatic non-team bid went to BYU's Brady Johnson, who shot a -8.
Women's crew had a disappointing weekend, as the 15th-ranked varsity eight finished sixth at the Pac-10 championships.
One final note. In the track story, Arrivey dedicated his win to teammate Shawn Swartz, a freshman high jumper from Canada whom Arrivey says was recently diagnosed with leukemia. This is the first I've heard of this, and I can't find any other information, but I'll pass along more as I learn it. Keep him in your prayers.