Simeon Birnbaum is in peak form, no matter the distance he’s running.
In his first time on the Hayward Field track since breaking the NCAA 1500-meter record, Birnbaum tried his luck in the 800-meter race. His placement behind Oregon teammates Bodey Lutes and James Harding for much of the race wasn’t surprising in the shorter distance, but as he took the final turn, it became something special. Birnbaum escaped the group he had run in for 1:37 and dominated the final 100 meters to record a personal-best, meet-record and 2026 Division I No. 3 time of 1:44.67.
“He’s very professional, and he’s dialed in, he’s focused, and we haven’t changed the training at all. We’re sticking with what we have been doing,†Oregon head coach Jerry Schumacher said. “I see that great running a lot throughout the year, but it’s fun even for me to see him doing it.â€
Birnbaum set his previous 800m personal best of 1:47.96 at the 2023 USATF U20 Outdoor Championships. After losing nearly his entire freshman season to injury, establishing himself as one of the best collegiate runners in the country over longer distances, and becoming the best in NCAA history over 1500m to open his junior outdoor season, Birnbaum revisited the old 800m mark.
“Simeon wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but he’s been running pretty well, so we anticipated there’d be something pretty good out there,†Schumacher said.
Also in the 800m, Lutes put in the 2026 NCAA No. 13 time, posting a 1:45.62 in his first race wearing an Oregon logo. Lutes ran unattached at the Oregon Team Invitational, but increased rumors of the NCAA’s five-for-five eligibility rules gave the team enough confidence to switch his red jersey for green and yellow.
“The whole idea of redshirting didn’t come from a fitness standpoint, it just kind of came from ‘we’re all gonna be better in our fifth year than our first year,’†Lutes said. “With more rumors about the five-year rule, we decided to take a gamble on that happening.â€
The Coos Bay native, whose mother ran at Oregon, didn’t want to wait any longer to don the school colors.
“We said, you know, it looks like (the rule) is going that direction — there’s no guarantees on it — What do you want to do? And he’s like, ‘I think I want to run in a uniform, then,†Schumacher said. “I think the whole town of Coos Bay was sitting over here somewhere.â€
Once the dream became a reality, Lutes felt the full significance of wearing the colors he saw on TV growing up watching Oregon football games.
“I try to stay as grounded as possible, but the boy in me is just like, ‘It’s a dream come true,’†Lutes said. “I was going to bed each night, just checking it out, feeling the jersey, like this is what I wanted forever.â€
Despite falling victim to Birnbaum’s final push, Lutes also set a personal best in a neck-and-neck finish with Harding, whose 1:45.66 was also a personal best.
Later in the evening, Birnbaum paced junior Benjamin Balazs in the McChesney 1500m. Balazs won the race with a personal best 3:36.23, the No. 10 time in Division I this season.
“Every single year, I watched this race and I’m usually either in the steeple or the slower (1500m), and I’m like, ‘Wow, like, the McChesney 15, that’s a good race, I want to be in that someday,’ and I mean, I won it,†Balazs said.
Behind Balazs, Oregon teammates Jeffery Rogers, Tomas Palfrey, and Tayson Echohawk each set their own personal bests. Rogers finished in third with a 3:36.57, good for No. 14 in Division I this season, while Palfrey and Echohawk finished neck-and-neck at 3:37.49 and 3:37.52, respectively, good for No. 21 and No. 22 in Division I.
“I was just talking to our guys on the warm-up about how every year this race has happened, Jerry’s only put one, maybe two of us in it, because our team was never that good,†Balazs said. “We were still building all those years, so I was just talking about how it was a success to see as many guys as we had in it.â€
In the women’s 1500m race, senior Silan Ayyildiz remains among the nation’s best. Paced by former teammate Klaudia Kazimierska, she turned in a season-best, Division I No. 9 time of 4:06.97 in her second non-relay-split race at the distance of the outdoor season.
A thinned-out list of field entrants due to most Ducks already having the marks they need for their goals this season was headlined by freshman shot putter Taylor Wiseman’s personal-best throw of 15.17 (49-9.25).Â
“I like where we’re sitting, both the men and the women,†Schumacher said. “I think the men are covering a lot of bases right now, and we have some depth in some events, so we’ll really put up some big points. The women — they don’t cover as many events, but a lot of really strong individuals, which are gonna put big points up in probably less events, but that’ll make our women’s team very competitive as well.â€
Oregon will be back in action at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska, starting May 15.
