Sooners Sweep Big 12 Long Jumps

AMES, Iowa. The University of Oklahoma men's and women's track and field teams came out of Friday at the Big 12 Indoor Championships in position to make a run at the top of the standings during Saturday's final events.

It was a day for personal bests in the field events as Sooners Frankie Wright and Portia Nash swept men's and women's long jumps.

Nash broke the OU school record with a jump of 20 feet, 7.25 inches (6.28 meters) on her final attempt to upset the conference's top-ranked athlete in the event, Ashika Charan of Texas A&M (20-5.75, 6.24), and walk-off with a gold medal.

"This is my first Big 12 Championship (title) and it's my senior year, my last track season," Nash said. "I'm just so happy. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I'm in heaven right now. It was all for OU. I was ranked sixth in the Big 12 and now I'm first in the Big 12 and that's for OU."

"I had nothing to lose. It's the last jump of the season, the indoor season and my senior year so I just put it all out there."

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Wright jumped a personal best 25-5.25 (7.75) on his third attempt to put the victory out of reach for all others.

OU freshman Ti'Anca Mock was third in the women's long jump at 19-11.00 (6.07), a personal best.

Success, however, was as common as misfortune on day one as two of the team's best athletes sustained injuries.

Oklahoma's Ronnie Pines, the Big 12's No. 1-ranked sprinter, was leading his heat of the 60-meter dash when he pulled his hamstring just feet from the finish line.

Shardae Boutte, the Big 12's No. 2-ranked triple jumper, collided with another competitor on the runway while making his first long jump attempt. Boutte sustained an injury to his eye that forced him to withdraw from the event.

It was the second straight year a Sooner was knocked out of the competition because of a collision on the long jump runway.

Marcus Pugh was the fastest in the 60-meter dash preliminaries, running 6.77. Pugh will also line up in the 200 after taking third in the prelims at 21.12.

The Oklahoma women ended day one in third place with 25 points. Texas Tech leads with 46 and Nebraska is second with 41.

The Sooner men are tied with defending champion Texas, Kansas and Nebraska for third with 18 points. The trio stands behind early leader Missouri (28) and Colorado (22).

Amy Backel scored the Sooner women's first point of the day with an eighth-place finish in the penthatlon. Backel totaled 3,458 points and took an event win in the shot put.

The women's distance medley relay of Catherine Odell, Kristi Cook, Tijhanni Newton and Jessica Eldridge lost in a dogfight to Texas Tech. After 4,000 meters, the Red Raiders' anchor Sally Kipyego clipped Eldridge at the finish line by .08 seconds, winning in 11:18.07.

Cook was the fastest qualifier in the women's 800-meter run, clocking a 2:11.92.

Eldridge will have a chance to defend her title in the mile run. The Broken Arrow native was the third fastest qualifier with a time of 4:53.10.

Newton was the fourth fastest in the women's 400 at 54.78.

Yolanda Goff qualified for the women's 60-meter dash final with the fifth fastest preliminary time of 7.41. Goff was also the fifth fastest qualifier in the 200 at 23.97.

Sheldon Leith was third fastest in the 60-meter hurdles prelims at 7.85, qualifying for Saturday's finals.

Both of OU's 800-meter runners, Logan Jones (1:50.20) and Brayon Brown (1:50.51), qualifed for the finals.

OU's freshman came up big when it counted as several posted times in the preliminaries fast enough to qualify for finals in their respective events.

Freshman Rob Sorrell qualified for the men's mile with the third fastest time, 4:07.56.

Sorrell also anchored the men's distance relay of Jacob Boone, Brown and Jones to fourth place (9:45.07).

Jasmine Still was the second fastest qualifier in the women's 600-yard run at 1:21.90 and Zach Dawson was the seventh fastest qualifier in the men's 600 at 1:10.41.

Ashley Storm (2:53.84) was the final qualifier for the 1,000-meter run.

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