STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford embarks on the indoor track and field season with a pair of top-20 rankings.
The Cardinal men are No. 13 and the women No. 16 in the first USTFCCCA coaches' poll of the season. Stanford competes at the UW Indoor Preview in Seattle on Saturday.
Stanford returns 19 indoor and outdoor All-Americans, including 13 who have earned first-team honors. The Cardinal has 11 indoor All-Americans, including six first-team selections.
Leading the way for Stanford are these returning first-team indoor All-Americans in individual events: Grant Fisher and Harrison Williams for the men and Lena Giger for the women.
Fisher, now a senior, was fourth in the 3,000 at last year's NCAA Indoor Championships, during his first collegiate indoor season. He came within two seconds of Chris Derrick's school record in the event and could be a national contender in the 3,000 or mile, as well as the distance medley relay.
Williams, a fifth-year senior, is the Stanford record holder in the heptathlon and decathlon, as well as the reigning Pac-12 decathlon champion. He owns fourth- and sixth-place finishes at the NCAA indoor meet in the heptathlon and figures to in the mix for his first national championship.
Giger, a fifth-year senior, was sixth nationally in the shot put indoors, but did even better outdoors, by capturing third. Her trajectory has been dramatically on the upswing for the past two years and she should contend at NCAA's. Last year, Giger broke the school indoor record held by Olympian Jillian Camarena.
In this, her final season of eligibility, the next logical step for Giger is a shot at Camarena's 2004 absolute Stanford mark of 59-6 3/4 (18.15 meters). Giger came within 2 ½ inches last year.
Fifth-year senior Steven Fahy, the Pac-12 steeplechase champion, is a returning second-team All-America in the men's indoor 5,000 and junior Fiona O'Keeffe, a three-time cross country All-America, earned second-team All-America honors in the women's 3,000 last year.
The distance medley relay is traditionally Stanford's signature event. The men's DMR has advanced to the NCAA indoor meet the past nine years, and the women for the past seven. Though the men have won five NCAA DMR's, including the school's most recent indoor title in 2014, the Cardinal women have come closest in recent years.
In the past five years, Stanford has placed second four times. In the past two years, the margin between Stanford the two winners was a combined 0.05.
The Cardinal men have five with NCAA DMR experience – Fisher, Julian Body, Tai Dinger, Brandon McGorty, and Brian Smith – including three from last year's fourth-place team.
The women return anchor Christina Aragon and quartermiler Missy Mongiovi from last year's squad that set a school-record of 10:52.02 in the NCAA final. It was the fifth-fastest time in collegiate history and the fastest second-place time in NCAA championship history.
