Sooners Travel to Ames for NCAA Indoor Track Qualifier

One week after a solid showing at the eighth annual Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships, nine Sooner student-athletes left today for Ames, Iowa, and the ISU NCAA Qualifier, scheduled for Saturday. Action in the meet begins at 9 a.m. and concludes with the men's 1600-meter relay, set to begin at 4 p.m.

Making the Trip
Competing for the Sooner women are Leslie Dunlap, pole vault; Jessica Eldridge, 800 and mile; and Catherine Odell, mile. For the OU men, entries include Cory Crosby, long jump; Salah Hussein, mile; Austin Landreth, pole vault; Scott Martin, pole vault; Jon McMillian, high jump; Aldwyn Sappleton, 800; and the men's 1600-meter relay (DaBryan Blanton, Dwayne Duhaney, Sappleton and Dax Thomas).

Of those making the trip, Eldridge, Landreth, Sappleton and the men's 1600-meter relay have provisional marks already recorded. They will be attempting to improve their national ranking while the remaining athletes will be attempting to post qualifying marks in the final weekend of action before the NCAA Championships.

More on Qualifier Meets
This weekend marks the final opportunity for athletes to qualify for the NCAA Championships, scheduled for March 12-13 in Fayetteville, Ark. All marks must be recorded by Saturday unless a school is participating in a conference meet that doesn't end until Sunday.

Other qualifier meets are scheduled to be held at LSU, Idaho, Idaho State, Notre Dame, Florida, Virginia Tech and Washington this weekend.

The Qualifying Process
There are 14 guaranteed spots in each event in the NCAA meet. After all automatic qualifiers are placed in the meet, any events that are short of the guarantee of 14 will be filled out by provisional qualifiers. After that, the rest of the field will be filled by provisional qualifiers until there are 270 competitors in the men's and the women's field. The final field for the 2004 meet will be announced Monday night.

Trackwire Rankings
The Sooner men continue to be ranked in the Trackwire 25 for the seventh consecutive week, coming in tied for 24th. The OU women, unranked by Trackwire, rank 17th in the United States Track Coaches Association Team Power Ranking this week.

The Sooner men are tied with USC, Arizona, Houston and Kansas. OU has been in the Trackwire 25 in each of the seven weeks of the '04 indoor season, opening the season tied for 14th, Since then the Sooners have been listed 15th, tied for 21st, tied for 19th, tied for 22nd and tied for 24th over the last five weeks.

The Trackwire 25 projects a hypothetical score for the NCAA meet, factoring in injury reports and other variables supported by information gathered from coaches and NCAA-qualifying competitions across the country. This projection is generated by scoring the Dandy Dozen, a power ranking of the top 12 athletes and relay squads in each NCAA event.

Sooner sophomore DaBryan Blanton is ranked second in the 60-meter dash in the Trackwire Dandy Dozen. On the women's side, LaVerne Jones is ranked fourth in the 60 and ninth in the 200 in Trackwire's Dandy Dozen. Jones posted an NCAA automatic qualifying mark in the 60 last Saturday in the Big 12 Championships. She ran a 7.24 to finish second. Jones also has an NCAA automatic mark in the 200. She ran a season best 23.31 in the prelims of the 200 at Big 12 finish and eventually finished second in the meet in that event.

The Dandy Dozen is selected using quantitative values that measure performances in past major competitions (such as conference championships, national championships and Olympic competition), durability and freedom from injuries, demonstrated ability to compete well in multiple rounds of competition, ability in other events, head-to-head competition with other top athletes, and personal or seasonal bests.

The Sooner women currently rank 17th in the USTCA Team Power Rankings, down from 12th a week ago. The Team Power Ranking is a unique system of ranking teams on the basis of quality of athletic performance, team depth, and dual meet scoring potential. The system rates teams in the same fashion as decathlete or heptathlete. Points are assigned for two athletes in each event contested in a dual meet and points are assigned on the basis of quality of performance. The top person in each event has his/her points doubled to adjust for the value of the number one performer on each team in a dual meet. The points for all events are then totaled for the ranking score.The ranking in the Team Power Ranking is based on time alone.

NCAA Rankings
Heading into the final weekend of action before the NCAA meet, several Sooners are listed on the ranking list for the championship. Those ranked, their event and the ranking include: DaBryan Blanton, 60, third; Aldwyn Sappleton, 800, 24th; men's 1600-meter relay, 29th; Austin Landreth, pole vault, 14th; LaVerne Jones, 60, sixth, and 200, eighth; Jessica Eldridge, 800, 13th, and mile, 22nd; and women's distance medley relay, 26th. Of those, only Blanton and Jones are automatic qualifiers.

Last Week at the Big 12 Championship
DaBryan Blanton in the 60 and Austin Landreth in the pole vault won Big 12 titles Saturday during the second day of action of the eighth annual Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championship in Lincoln, Neb.

Senior LaVerne Jones closed her amazing weekend of competition with second place finishes in the 60 and the 200 and she ran the opening leg of OU's sixth place 1600-meter relay.

Nebraska won the men's and women's titles. The Sooner men finished sixth, tying the previous all-time best finish for OU. The Sooner men, 11th in 2003, finished sixth in 1997, the first year of the Big 12 Conference. The OU women finished eighth, just half a point away from tying an all-time best finish and just 4.5 points from a top six finish. The Sooners were ninth in the meet in 2003.

Blanton's winning time in the 60, 6.67, was an NCAA provisional mark but fell short of the 6.57 he posted in semifinal action on Friday. His semifinal time was the second fastest by an American this season until Saturday's USATF National Indoor. After that event, Blanton's 6.57 dropped to the fourth fastest in the country. It also set a Big 12 meet record and is the all-time best mark in the Big 12.

Landreth, who won the NCAA Regional title last May in Lincoln, returned Saturday to win the conference indoor pole vault title with a 17-5.75. The mark was a season and career best for the Elk City junior and beat the NCAA provisional standard. OU also got points in the pole vault from Scott Martin, who tied for sixth, with a 16-6. Martin is a freshman from Tulsa.

Jones broke her own school record in the 60, running a 7.24. She had set the record Friday in the semifinals when she set a Big 12 meet record with a 7.27. That mark fell in the final. She then ran a 23.46 in the 200, another NCAA automatic time but not her season best in the event.

Aldwyn Sappleton, the 2002 Big 12 champion in the 600, finished second in the 800 with a 1:49.41. The time beat the NCAA provisional standard and was a season best for Sappleton by nearly two seconds.

The men's 1600 meter relay, with Sappleton taking the second leg and Blanton running the third leg, posted a season best 3:10.41 to finish third. Dwyane Duhaney ran the opening leg and Dax Thomas ran the anchor leg on the relay which posted an NCAA provisional mark for the first time this season.

Enid freshman Catherine Odell finished third in the 1000 meter run with a career best 2:49.83 and Choctaw freshman Jon McMillian established a career best in the high jump, clearing 7-0.25 to finish fourth. Odell's time lowered her career mark by nearly seven seconds. The Sooner women got points in the 800 from sophomore Nicola Maye, who finished fifth with a 2:10.40, and freshman Jessica Eldridge, who was seventh with a 2:11.71.

Enid junior Dan Strong held steady in the heptathlon, finishing seventh with 4,926 points. The final score is a career best for Strong by more than 300 points and ranks as the second best mark all-time in school history. Salah Hussein finished eighth in the men's 1000 with a 2:29.35.

The women's 1600 meter relay, with Jones running the opening leg and Maye taking the third leg, finished sixth with a season best 3:47.82. Terrika Warren ran the second leg and Ashley Johnson ran the anchor leg.

The top eight finishers in each event earned All-Big 12 honors. The OU men produced 17 All-Big 12 honorees, including those with multiple honors, and the Sooner women produced 14 All-Big 12 honorees, again including the multiple honorees.

Next Up
DaBryan Blanton and LaVerne Jones are definitely headed to the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships next weekend and OU will find out Monday who else is invited. The rest of the Sooners will begin preparation for the outdoor season openers. OU's combined event athletes will travel to the Texas A&M Combined March 18-19 while the remainder of the team will head to the Dr Pepper Invitational in Waco on March 20.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooners Travel to Ames for NCAA Indoor Track Qualifier

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