Washington’s Nathan Green wins NCAA 1,500 title as Huskies go 1-2 in event

The Washington men repeated as the 1,500 meter champion, but last year’s winner finished second.

Nathan Green won his first NCAA title, winning the event at the track and field championships Friday in Austin, Texas.

Joe Waskom, last year’s champion, was right behind him in second.

It’s the first 1-2 finish in the event since Oregon did it in 2010. UW coach Andy Powell was the coach at Oregon in 2010. Powell has coached the NCAA 1,500 champ six times over the last 13 meets.

Green won in 3 minutes, 42.78 seconds. Waskom won in 3:42.93. Luke Houser, who won the mile title in the indoor championships, was 10th in 3:44.61.

“The team culture. I mean, there are no rivalries,” Green said post-race to Flotrack.org. “There’s no, ‘I’m trying to be better than Joe.’ It’s not, ‘Joe’s trying to be better than me, or better than Luke.’ We’re just trying to be better together. And then our goal was to go obviously 1-2-3, but in what order, we had no plan. It was just whoever was there.”

Cass Elliott, the first Husky in the 400 hurdles final since 1971, took seventh in 49.21.

Elijah Mason was eighth in the discus at 200 feet, five inches for the fourth podium finish (top eight) in his career at Washington.

• UW’s Nastassja Campbell (14-7¼) was second in the pole vault Thursday, and Sara Borton (14-1¼) tied for a sixth-place finish. They were the co-Pac-12 champs.

Minors

• Cade Marlowe and Taylor Trammell homered as the visiting Tacoma Rainiers took down the Reno Aces 9-5.

• The AquaSox’s game against visiting Vancouver was rained out. It’ll be made up as part of a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 5:05 p.m.

College hires

• Seattle U rounded out its men’s basketball staff by hiring former graduate assistant Colin Rardin as an assistant coach.

• Eastern Washington hired Tim Collins as its new Associate Vice President/Director of Intercollegiate Athletics. He is the senior associate athletic director for development at Fresno State.