University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooners Ready for Big 12 Indoor Championship

Sooners Ready for Big 12 Indoor Championship

February 23, 2017 | Track and Field

NORMAN  Five meets worth of times and marks and all of the repetitions and hours spent practicing their events have prepared the Sooners for this weekend's Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championship in Ames, Iowa. 

Individually, the efforts of the Oklahoma track and field teams have produced personal bests, top marks in the conference and the nation, and rewritten the all-time top 10 list. Collectively, they have won team titles at the Sooner Opener, the J.D. Martin Invitational, and for the women, the Mark Colligan Memorial.  The women's team also finished third at the historic Armory Track Invitational. 

Those five meets and the results that occurred have laid the foundation leading up to this weekend. The Sooners will need to rely upon and utilize those experiences during the competition at the Lied Recreation Center this weekend.

“I feel really good about our preparation, experience and health,” says head coach Jim VanHootegem.  “In particular, we believe that the meets we've travelled to this year (Nebraska, New York, and Arkansas) have been valuable experiences for our athletes in understanding how to prepare themselves. Next, we have a good group of veterans who have experienced scoring at this meet.  No one is ever fully healthy, but we have to feel good that we are a relatively healthy team going into this meet.”

The competition will begin on Friday at 10 a.m. (CT) with the 60-meter hurdles of the women's pentathlon.  Makayla Stephens and CeCe Jackson will be competing in the pentathlon which has all five events on Friday. The heptathlon will begin at 11 a.m. with the 60-meter dash, and will complete four events on the first day.  Steven Jazdyk will be the lone Sooner entry in this event. 

For those not competing in the pentathlon or heptathlon, the field and running events are scheduled to start with the women's weight throw and women's pole vault at 3 p.m., and the men's mile prelim at 3:30 p.m. Events will continue until the conclusion of the men's DMR, which is set to start at 9 p.m.  This will be the debut for OU's men and women's DMR teams. 

The championship will resume at 11 a.m. (CT) Saturday with the conclusion of the heptathlon. There will be three events remaining on day two in the heptathlon - the 60-meter hurdles, the pole vault and the 1,000-meter run.  The women's shot put and men's triple jump will lead off the field events at noon while the 60-meter hurdles finals will start the running events at 1:30 p.m.  The final event of the championship will be the 4x400 meter relay, with the men set to line up at 5:25 p.m.

For scoring purposes, the top eight finishers will receive the following points: 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

In the 2016 Big 12 Indoor, Hayden McClain won the triple jump title and Thomas Cheval won the heptathlon. The men's DMR team, that included three current Sooners Blake Yount, Jacob Goldberg and Jacob Burcham, also won.  As a team, the men finished fifth with 82 points and the women finished with 57.50 points for eighth place.

The Sooners are hoping to add individual titles and points this year, and will be carrying a strong résumé of prior success and momentum into this championship meet.  Oklahoma is coming off strong performances in its latest meets, the Husky Classic and Tyson Invitational, in which 15 PRs were set. 

 “There may be a couple of exceptions of people who need to step up their game, but, as a rule, we are really just wanting everyone to do something that they have already done,” VanHootegem states.  “Most of the people we are taking to this meet have set a personal record in a meet this season.  We just need everyone to be near that.

 “A great meet for our team is everyone having a good meet.  How we will feel about our performance on Saturday night will be based upon how many people on the team just do his or her job.”

 Live results will be available at http://results.deltatiming.com/big-12/tf/2017-big-12-indoor-championships?DB_OEM_ID=10410. FloTrack will also have live coverage, accessible for subscribers.  For those planning to make the trip to Ames, tickets will be available at the door.  Prices will be $7 for adults and $5 for high school students and younger.  Only single-day tickets will be sold.  As always, updates will be provided throughout the day on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (OU_Track).  A recap will be posted at the end of each day at SoonerSports.com.

Saturday, June 13
Friday, June 12
Thursday, June 11
Wednesday, June 10