OU T&F Heads South to Arlington For UTA Invite

March 27, 2003

NORMAN, Okla. - The Sooner track and field teams will close the month of March at the Texas-Arlington Invite this weekend. The meet, which will feature entries from 52 OU student-athletes, will mark the third outdoor competition for some Sooners, the second for some and the outdoor season opener for 33 others including 2003 NCAA Indoor All-Americans LaVerne Jones and DaBryan Blanton. Several Sooners will wait to open their 2003 outdoor season next weekend at the Texas Relays.

Events Schedule
Barbara Phillips will be the first to compete with the women's hammer throw scheduled for late Friday afternoon on the campus of Southern Methodist. The rest of the team will start competition on Saturday morning with Jennifer Plank (pole vault) and Renea' Burns (javelin) scheduled for 9 a.m. events. Most of the field events will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday with events on the track also scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
The track events open with the men's 3000-meter run and will conclude with the men's 1600-meter relay at 7:55 p.m.

The College Station Combined
Sophomore Dan Strong posted four career bests in two days of competition to finish 10th in the bronze division of the men's decathlon at the College Station Combinedlast weekend. Strong finished with 5,575 points in his first combined competition of the 2003 outdoor season. OU's Chaundra Allard finished 10th in the gold division of the heptathlon with 4,468 points.
Strong recorded a career best 12.01 in the 100 to open competition on Thursday. He followed with a career best of 21-7.5 in the long jump. He added a career best 155-2 in the javelin and a career best 4:56.94 in the 1500 on the second day of competition. His final point total was just 191 points short of a career best despite failing to score any points in the pole vault, one of his best events in the decathlon.
While Allard did not post any career best marks in the meet, she did open with some of her better marks in a combined meet. Many of her career bests in the combined events were set at the end of the competitive season last year in the Canadian Senior Nationals.

The College Station Relays
Tiffany Davis won the 100-meter hurdle title at the College Station Relays Saturday and in the process posted an NCAA regional qualifying mark. The Sooner senior finished the race with a 14.06 to become the second OU student-athlete in as many meets to post a regional qualifying mark.
Senior Kyle Bookout, who posted a regional qualifying mark at North Texas on March 14, improved that mark with a 189-2 to finish fourth in the Relays. The 189-2 is an OU career best for the Sooner and ranks as the second best mark on the all-time OU career list. Current Sooner throws coach Ed Wade is first on the list with a 205-7 from 1985.
Several Sooners posted career best marks in their first competition of the 2003 outdoor season. They included Veronica Clayborne in the 100-meter hurdles, triple jump and high jump; Lameisa Thomas in the 800; Amanda Wedel in the 100; Katie Blue in the discus; Joe Butler, in the 100 meter; Kennan Johnson, in the 110-meter high hurdles; Andrew Crabbe in the 200; Dwayne Duhaney in the 400; Robert Smith in the 100 and 200; and Josh Scott in the 400.

Bookout Named Big 12 T&F Athlete of the Week
OU senior Kyle Bookout was named the Big 12's first Men's Track and Field Athlete of the Week Monday, March 24, for performances during the first two weeks of the Sooners' 2003 outdoor season.
Bookout finished fourth in the discus Saturday at the College Station Relays with a career best throw of 189-2. The mark was his second regional qualifying effort in as many meets and moves him to second place on the all-time OU career list for the discus. He trails current OU throws coach Ed Wade who was credited with a 205-7 in 1985.
Bookout, a fifth year senior from Stroud, Okla., opened the 2003 season with a second place finish at the North Texas Invitational on March 14. In that meet, he threw 171-0, also an NCAA regional qualifying mark. It was his first competition since the Big 12 Championships in May 2001. He missed the entire 2002 season with shoulder injuries and subsequent shoulder surgery.

Next Up
For those who are invited, the next meet is the Texas Relays, April 3-5, in Austin, Texas. The Sooner will host their only outdoor meet of the 2003 season, the annual John Jacobs Invitaitonal, on April 12.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

OU T&F Heads South to Arlington For UTA Invite

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