OU Keeps Consistency in Mind for UTA Meet

March 25, 2016 | Track and Field

By: Athletics Communications

NORMAN - The Oklahoma outdoor track and field season is quickly picking up as the teams are back on the road to compete in the Bobby Lane Invitational in Arlington, Texas.

The 18-team meet is scheduled to begin Friday at 3 p.m. (CT) with the men's and women's hammer throw and conclude on Saturday night. Throughout the two-day competition, 43 Sooner entries are slated to contend in 25 events.

The Sooners last participated in the UT-Arlington event in 2012, combining for seven wins, 19 collegiate bests and 17 top-five finishers. While most of the current coaches weren't here in 2012 and no Sooner who competed that year will compete in 2016, the expectation of consistency and similar success remains for head coach Jim VanHootegem. "We're always looking for a consistency in our approach to things, so I think it is the consistent mental approach that probably is most important."

There will be eight Sooners coming off of personal bests at the Baldy Castillo Invitational held in Tempe, Ariz., last weekend, including Payton Baker, who had two personal bests in the 200- meter and 400-meter dashes. In terms of carryover from the opening weekend's success, for the head coach "the number one thing is we left Arizona mostly healthy and we left with a good team attitude. I think that is something we're looking forward to is that the team is excited about competing and just continuing to improve each week of the season."

While some will be trying to build on results from the previous meet, for many this will be their first experience participating in an outdoor event. To be exact, 17 student-athletes are making their outdoor season debut, including seven who are making their collegiate debut. As far as expectations go, VanHootegem is viewing this meet as a chance for them to step up and show what they can do. "Now that they're deeper in the season and had more time to work on their events, maybe we'll see some younger people step up at this event."

Charles Nguyen will compete in the hammer throw at the Bobby Lane Invitational on Friday to open the weekend competition for the Sooners.

Charles Nguyen and Ashley Bryant will start things for the Sooners on Friday in the hammer throw. The women begin at 3 p.m. (CT) with the men to follow. Nguyen is coming into this season as a Big 12 outdoor scorer in the hammer throw the past two years as well as having qualified for the NCAA West prelims last year, while Bryant is in her first year of competing as a Sooner after transferring to OU.

Field events on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. with the women's long jump, featuring first-timer Hailey Patterson and Brianna Rodriguez, competed in the event at last weekend's outdoor opener. The running events begin at 11 a.m. with the women's 200 meter featuring Alexis Barnes, Leya Buchanan, and Ama Pipi, followed by Trae Armstrong, Tyrone Glenn and Shonderius Howard in the men's 200.

A large group of Sooner women will be running the 1500 at 12:05 p.m. and the 100 at 2:50 p.m. with five in each event. Lauren Gibbs, Abbey Mace, Lane Maguire, Chloe Peek and Bryce Perry will run the 1500m for the first time this year, while Patterson will make her debut in the 100 as a Sooner.

Like Patterson, Glenn will make his collegiate debut in the 100 at 3:20 p.m., competing in the field with Greg Vann and Armstrong, who is coming off a personal best in the event with a 10.35.

The last field events are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and includes women's discus with Jenny Carmichael, coming off a personal best of 155-5.00, men's high jump with Howard, coming off his personal best of 6-9.75 and Garrison LeRock, who is making his season debut, and the men's triple jump featuring Marcus Mitchell and Joshua Foster, competing in the event outdoors for the first time as collegians.

Eric Alldritt will compete for the second time this outdoor season; he will contend in the 5,000-meter run with two other Sooners.

To finish out the meet, Eric Aldritt, Alonzo Chavez and Zach Gentry will run the 5000m, followed by the Sooners' 4x400-meter relay -- Pipi, Mia Mukes, Daunicia Demerson and Baker, who compete at 7:25 p.m. Three of the four, Pipi, Mukes and Demerson, ran on the relay last weekend. Baker joins the quartet this weekend as the they try to improve on a second-place finish and a time of 3:38.49.

The Sooners are in the middle of a four-week string of competition to open the season and a majority of the team will participate in the Texas Relays Wednesday through Saturday, April 2. Another group will head west to the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto scheduled for April 1-2.

Live results will be available via Delta Timing with a full recap after each day of the meet available on SoonerSports.com.