EUGENE -- It was late Wednesday evening when an upset Robert Johnson interrupted Oregon's team dinner in the basement of Matthew Knight Arena by stepping to the front of the room.

After spending the NCAA outdoor track and field championships' first day stumbling around their home track in shocking fashion with critical mistakes in the 4x100 relay and 800 meters, the dinner menu for Oregon — which entered with the confidence befitting a title contender — might as well have been humble pie.

Johnson was the only speaker and his message was stern, if not entirely printable. At its heart, though, was this: Suck it up and move on.

"It's just one of those things where, hey, this is not us, this is not what we do, this is not Oregon," Johnson said Thursday. "It was mainly to do with the mishaps and missteps in the 4x100 and the 800. Those are events we thought we definitely were going to do well in and score, and so for that to happen the first thing that you see, it was like a rallying cry from there on the rest of the day.

"That was the big thing of the meeting, in a nice way, I guess."

Taking their coach's speech to heart, the Ducks responded Thursday in front of 9,903 at Hayward Field with a poised performance, one sparked by Laura Bobek's unexpected third-place discus finish that was as stunning as any misstep UO incurred the previous day. It was the only final in a day loaded with preliminaries for Oregon, but if the mantra entering was to simply survive and advance, Bobek's school-record heave of 184 feet, 8 inches quickly changed that to surprise and advance.

The Astoria native's throw was 12 feet farther than her season's best and nearly four feet farther than the school record set in 1985 — which also happens to be the same year the Oregon women last won an NCAA outdoor crown. Coming on her last throw of her career, it had impeccable timing for Bobek and the Ducks, whose 19 points are a nine-point lead entering the final two days.

Like her team's poised response, Bobek's throw had its roots in something earlier.

"On Monday when we were practicing I was throwing 180, 183 (feet)," said Bobek, who entered with only the nation's 26th-farthest throw. "I'd been practicing really well and I just wanted to come out and do it again."

Oregon now enters the meet's final two days with renewed confidence it can contend for a title with the likes of Texas and Texas A&M, even as its margin for error remains as thin as ever.

Unlike Wednesday, when Jenna Prandini was one of few bright spots, the sophomore sprinter was joined by several teammates in giving UO several reasons to hold out hope yet.

Prandini's time of 22.95 in her 200-meter semifinal won her heat and was the fastest among all qualifiers, giving her the fastest prelim time for a second straight day after she was the fastest 100-meter qualifier Wednesday. She held a four-meter lead by 90 meters and comfortably coasted the final 40 for the victory.

After winning the long jump, Prandini will attempt to add a second national title Friday when the 100 final goes off at 5:07 p.m.

"I think that if I do what I do every day in practice I'll be happy with the result," Prandini said. "It's a tough field, and I think any given day, anyone can win."

Oregon channeled its day-long rally in the 4x400-meter relay prelims to automatically qualify in second after finishing Ashante Horsley's first leg in sixth. Chizoba Okodogbe's superb second leg in 51.3 moved UO up three spots, and then Christian Brennan and Laura Roesler did the rest. The Ducks' "rolled the dice," Johnson acknowledged, by not running anchor Phyllis Francis, but the gamble paid out.

"Our slogan all year has been strength in numbers," Roesler said. "One unfortunate leg wasn't going to define the race."

One misstep was Sasha Wallace's 100-meter hurdle semifinal in which she labored to eighth in 13.63. It was not a hit to UO's good day, however, as she had not been projected to score by Track & Field News' form chart.

Alli Cash also did not advance in the 1,500, but her exit was trumped by Sarah Penney's race in the other 1,500 semifinal. The senior fought through a physical race to make the cut for Saturday's final in 4 minutes, 18.10 seconds, the fifth-fastest time. Planning to surge with 600 meters to go, she instead found her plan disrupted by pushing among the field. Rather than going wide to pass on a curve, she waited until the final 100 meters to push for the automatic qualifier that went to the top five finishers.

It was risky, but she knew Oregon could no longer afford to play it safe to win, a message driven home in Wednesday night's team meeting.

"I felt confident, I do workouts sometimes with Laura Roesler so I'm like, if I can keep up with her, I can pass some people at the end," Penney said. "(Wednesday) was really upsetting, but we're pulling points from other areas that we didn't expect. ... We're going to keep our heads up 'til the end of day four."

-- Andrew Greif | @andrewgreif