Sooners Head South to Austin

The Sooner track and field teams are heading south this week, sending nearly 35 student-athletes to the 78th annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. This meet marks the third week of the Sooner outdoor schedule.

The first of three groups of Sooners headed south Tuesday with competition set to begin for them on Wednesday. On Wednesday, another group will leave for Austin while the final group of athletes and coaches leave on Thursday.

The Travel Squad
Senior Dan Strong will be the first to compete, opening competition in the 10-event decathlon at noon on Wednesday. The first five events of the decathlon will be held on Wednesday with the final five events set for Thursday. The Thursday events are set to begin at 10 a.m.

Three other Sooners will compete on Wednesday as Jackie Dubois, Aja Clark and Tyler Schmiedeberg were included in the field for the invitational 10,000. The women's race is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. with the men's race set for 7:30 p.m.

In addition to the events of the decathlon on Thursday, the finals of the 4 x 800-meter relays for men and women are set for Thursday afternoon.

On Friday, the men's and women's 400-meter relay teams as well as the Sooner entries in the men's 110-meter hurdles, men's and women's 100-meter dash, men's and women's 3000-meter steeplechase, men's 1500, women's long jump, women's pole vault, women's high jump and men's discus will open competition.

On Saturday, Sooners in the women's 1500, men's high jump, men's shot put, men's pole vault as well as the 4 x 200-meter relay and distance medley relays as well as any qualifiers in the 100-meter dash as well as the 400-meter relays will be in action.

A Quick Look at the Meet
One of the longest running relay events in the country, the Texas Relays mark the start of the traditional collegiate relay circuit that ends with the Drake Relays the last weekend of the month.

The bulk of the meet is action in the relays while the field events include a full slate. The running events traditionally draw some of the top collegiate and open runners. In addition, the schedule includes a full slate for high school boys and high school girls as well as sections for college men and women in some events.

The Last Time Out
Junior Jennifer Plank and redshirt sophomore Kevin Bookout opened the 2005 outdoor season with victories and NCAA Regional qualifying marks last Saturday at the 25th annual UTA Invite at Maverick Stadium.

Plank won the women's pole vault with a 12-5.50 and Bookout, who missed the 2004 season after undergoing shoulder surgery on his throwing shoulder, won the shot put with a 58-4.50.

The mark for Plank is a career best by two inches and ranks as the third best mark in school history. For Bookout, his winning mark wasn't a career best but it extended a streak that he started in 2003 as a freshman. The mark at UTA was his eighth consecutive time to meet the NCAA Regional qualifying mark in regular season competition.

Another Sooner, senior Kerri Ann Mitchell had the good fortune of running in a heat not affected by excessive winds. Mitchell finished third in the 100-meter dash with an 11.66, an NCAA Regional qualifying time. Sooner teammate Yolanda Goff finished second with an 11.63, also a qualifying mark, but the wind reading in her race was 0.2 over the allowable.

Sophomore Jessica Pekah finished fourth in the discus with a 145-9, marking her second week to improve her career mark. She also moved up to fifth on the all-time OU list with the performance. She threw the discus 137-2 March 26 at the Dr Pepper Invitational in Waco, Texas. Sophomore Cale Drumright also improved his career mark in the javelin throw for the second week, finishing sixth with a 189-11. That mark ranks 10th on the all-time Sooner career list.

Next Up
A number of Sooners will travel to Emporia, Kan., for the Euler State Farm/ESU Relays on Saturday. A total of 36 Sooners will leave on Friday for that meet.

Next on the schedule is the annual John Jacobs Invitational. This marks the first John Jacobs to be held at the renovated Sooner track and field complex. The meet was not held in 2004 because of construction that was going on at the facility.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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