Completed Event: Track and Field at Battle on the Bayou on April 3, 2026 ,
Final
Track and Field
at Battle on the Bayou
University of Oklahoma Athletics
Sooners to Compete at Nebraska Saturday
January 20, 2017 | Track and Field
NORMAN- With one meet under their belt, the Oklahoma track and field teams will now be tested to see how they perform outside of the friendly confines of Mosier Indoor as they compete in the Mark Colligan Memorial in Lincoln, Neb., on Saturday.
The one- day event will feature host Nebraska, Houston and Wichita State, which should set the stage for a close and exciting competition.
“I think it is a great meet,” compliments fourth-year head coach Jim VanHootegem. “Nebraska is a great program that puts on a great home competition. Their teams knows how to compete. The University of Houston has a lot of exciting athletes. Not trying to put the pressure on them, but, at a brief glance, I'm not so sure Wichita State isn't the favorite in this track meet.
“I think you have four teams that try to have a complement of all of the events and are trying to win their respective conference championships,” continues VanHootegem. “It's really a great, fantastic dress rehearsal for Big 12 -- to get our mind thinking about how our team goes into a team meet opposed to a meet that might be more individual.”
The Sooners will have 56 competitors, 28 men and 28 women, in the 34 different events throughout the day. The top two finishers from each school score per event.
Given that this is a glimpse of what can be expected at the Big 12 Indoor Championship held at the end of Feb., “We began with filling out our two-deep roster per event and then filled in with people that are, at this stage, showing that they are potential Big 12 scorers even if they were someone beyond our top two.”
Kicking off the meet at 11:30 a.m. will be a trio of events in the women's weight throw, women's long jump and men's pole vault. The running events will start at 12:45 p.m. with the preliminary heats of the 60-meter hurdles. The final field event of the day will be the men's triple jump, scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m., and the running events will finish with the men's 4x400 meter relay at 4:50 p.m.
Maintaining consistency in execution, focus and results will be key as the Sooners look to follow up on their opening weekend's showing in the Sooner Opener, in which 15 personal bests were set and the teams notched 20 event wins.
However, more so than just experiencing wins and setting personal bests, on a collective level, this meet will present an opportunity for the athletes to understand how their individual role on the team influences the overall success of the team.
“We want them to be able to execute their events. Each person has a job to do, based on what they've been working on with their event coach. At the same time, they need to be mindful of the competitive situation.
“The number one thing is that we come away from this meet and everyone knows it is each person's role to do his or her job,” VanHootegem explains. “What we expect is to see a close track meet. We're going to come away with a score that is going to be close and people are going to realize how every point counts in a team meet.”
A full recap will be posted on Soonersports.com following the conclusion of the meet. For those interested in following, live results will be available at http://results.deltatiming.com/nebraska?DB_OEM_ID=100.
Saturday, June 13
Friday, June 12
Thursday, June 11
Wednesday, June 10
