Women’s 800: Oregon’s Laura Roesler Comes Through As The Favorite To Earn 10-Points For The Women Of Oregon

Winning the fight for second was Stanford sophomore Claudia Saunders who finished 1.7 seconds behind Roesler in 2:02.92, beating out Iowa State’s Ejiroghene Okoro (2:03.37) and Georgia’s Megan Malasarte (2:03.42). Dartmouth’s Megan Krumpoch was 5th and Stanford’s Amy Weissenbach was 6th.

The Race

This race went out fairly conservatively with no one jumping right to the lead as they went through 200 in about 29 seconds. Going into the turn, Georgia’s Malasarte took control and lead the field through a 60.59 first 400m. Roesler sat in the middle of the pack boxed in on all sides.

Malasarte continued to lead through the next turn, but with about 270m to go Amy Weissenbach made a big move to take the lead. Her bid for glory was short-lived however, as Roesler followed her and seized control of the race right about the 200m mark with such a burst of speed that she had already gaped the field by 150m to go.

Coming into the home stretch, it was a clear victory for Roesler as Saunders worked hard to earn a clean second and Okoro just nipped Malasarte for 3rd. Roesler ran negative splits with laps of 61.06 and 60.16. Weissenback was our pre-race pick for second, but she faded badly over the final 200 with a 63.32 last lap for 6th place, the same spot she finished last year.

Quick Take #1: A solid victory for Laura Roesler, who earns 10 crucial points for Oregon in the team battle. Roesler is in a class of her own right now among collegiate 800 runners as her overall strength and finishing speed just can’t be matched, whether it be a slow or fast race.

However, this was a fairly weak year in the women’s 800, so just how good is Roesler on the whole? Well her her 2:00.54 800 PR puts her 8th on the NCAA all-time list which is lead by Suzy Favor Hamilton in 1:59.11 so she’d be competitive for an NCAA title just about any year. She was 5th last year at the US Championships, but she’ll have to work hard to improve on that as 3 of the 4 in front of her (Brenda Martinez, Ajee Wilson and Kate Grace) are all young and in the prime years of their career. At 28 years old Alysia Montano is not by any means on her way out, but it remains to be seen how good she’ll be once she returns from her current pregnancy.

QT #2: It’s a real shame that 2013 NCAA champion Natoya Goule wasn’t in this race as a showdown between her and Roesler would have been great (Goule’s PR is 2:00.06). Goule had to sit out this year after transferring from LSU to Clemson, but still has eligibility. However, Roesler is a senior so will be moving on and next year (barring any breakthroughs from current collegiates) Goule will dominate the 800 just like Roesler did this year. It’s fun to watch great athletes, but even better when you get two of them competing against each other.