Sooners Post NCAA Qualifying Mark With a School Record

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The OU women's distance medley relay made history Friday night and the race may have been the easiest part of the journey.

Catherine Odell, Kristi Cook, Nicola Maye and Jessica Eldridge combined to run 11:30.53 and finish fifth in the distance medley relay at the Meyo Invitational on the campus of the University of Notre Dame Friday night. The time beat the NCAA provisional standard for the event by six seconds and broke a 23-year-old school record.

Georgetown won the event with an 11:07.27 followed by Notre Dame and Michigan. The top three teams all met the NCAA automatic qualifying mark. Kentucky was fourth.

It wasn't an easy trip for OU as the Sooners sat at Will Rogers World Airport Thursday afternoon waiting to board a flight to Chicago. All flights were eventually cancelled and the OU group returned to Norman, only to leave again at 5 a.m. Friday. The weather was more cooperative on Friday and the Sooners made it to South Bend about seven hours before the race.

“We've been joking that the ghosts of that school record relaywere trying to get in the way of them setting the record tonight,” said assistant track coach Rodney Rothoff. “I am excited for these runners that they met their goal. It wasn't easy with the travel challenges we faced yesterday and today and the weather challenges we have had today. We wanted to get a qualifying time and we wanted to get that record. Now, they have both.

“We knew coming in that we had a great opportunity to break the mark because of the quality of this field and because of the reputation this track has for fast times. Four of the top 12 relays in the country were entered in the race and we knew that would give us a chance to run a great time. We just had to get to the meet.”

Odell opened with a 3:33 split in the 1200 followed by Cook's 58 split in the 400. Maye ran a 2:10 in the 800 leg and Eldridge ran the anchor leg, a 1600, in 4:47. The relay's best time until tonight was 11:53.27, a mark posted two weeks ago at the Clemson Invitational. That time ranked as the second best in the Big 12 heading into action this weekend.

The previous mark was 11:32.56 and it was set in 1981 by Carol Sames, Felecia Moore, Siri Bjelland and Kellie Cathey on their way to All-America honors in the event.

This relay should have more opportunities to lower the record as three of the four runners are true freshmen and one is a sophomore. In fact, none of the women who ran on tonight's record-setting relay had been born when the previous record was set. Maye, the sophomore, is the oldest of the quartet at 20. The remaining three runners were born in 1985, four years after the previous record was set.

On Saturday, Odell and Maye will run in individual mile races while Cook and Eldridge will run in individual 800-meter races. Eldridge already has an NCAA provisional mark in the mile at 4:47.48. That time stood as the 11th best in the country heading into the weekend's action.