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OU to Compete in Two Meets This Weekend
February 09, 2017 | Track and Field
NORMAN - For the only time this indoor season, the Oklahoma track and field teams will be competing in two separate meets this weekend.
The majority of the team will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., to compete in the two-day Tyson Invitational. A select few will be heading west to Seattle, Wash., to run in the Husky Classic.
“We have a select number of our distance runners going to Washington,” explains head coach Jim VanHootegem. “We are going to a meet in Arkansas and Arkansas' distance people are going to Iowa State. I would say it is done more so for the competition. It is just the level of performance that you have to have for some to go to the NCAA Championships, and for others to make the fast heat at Big 12 Indoor. The type of race and the type of facility that you compete in dictate that. The competition for this weekend goes to oversized tracks. We have to go where the competition is. For the most part, we are competing as a team at Arkansas.”
The events in Fayetteville will begin at 1 p.m. on Friday, starting with the men's pole vault. At 1:50 p.m. the women's 400-meters will open the track events for OU. Events will continue until the men's 60-meter final starts at 6:15 p.m. The meet will resume for the Sooners Saturday at 11 a.m. with the women's pole vault. The running events start with women's 200-meter dash at 1 p.m. The final event of the meet for OU will be the women's 4x400-meter relay at 4:25 p.m.
The Tyson Invitational will be a stacked field as there will be, based on the Feb. 6 USTFCCA poll, nine ranked men's teams and 13 ranked women's teams (including # 25 Oklahoma), contending for the team title. On the men's side, the ranked teams include #1 Florida, #3 LSU, #5 Arkansas, #8 Southern California, #12 Texas Tech, #15 Texas, # 16 Kansas, #17 Colorado and #20 Oklahoma State. The women will be competing against #2Arkansas, #4 Southern California, #5 Florida, #6 Kentucky, #7 LSU, # 8Texas, # 12Baylor, #13 Kansas State, #16 Purdue, #18 N.C. State, #19 Oklahoma State and #24 Harvard. In total, there will be 36 men's teams and 37 women's teams.
“The competition in Arkansas is going to be tremendous,” credits VanHootegem. “For kids who are going to nationals or want to go to nationals, they are going to see several of the people competing this weekend. The field will be deep with national qualifiers. Making the finals, getting six throws, getting six jumps, getting to the finals in the sprints is going to be challenging. It's a much higher quality at Arkansas. The high-end quality and the quality depth is make it the best meet in the nation.
“We need to be at that level now. We've had the opportunities to get all our meet kids to have multiple rounds and almost be assured of six jumps or six throws. Now they are going to have to perform at a high level to do that.”
Having had the experience of competing in the Armory Track Invitational last weekend may have an impact on this week's performances in the Tyson Invitational.
“We mentioned this going into New York. One of the things we like about the Armory meet is that it is more of a hectic environment. We want to build up resilience. Hopefully, for our team that resilience is something that helps as we go to Arkansas. Maybe functionally, it is an easier meet than the Armory, but competitively, it is a competitive cauldron. This meet is full of a lot of the best athletes in the country and for many,it is the final tune-up before their respective conference meets. The fields will be filled with NCAA qualifiers and we're going to see teams that will compete for conference championships and NCAA trophies.”
This will be the final tune-up for the Sooners as the Big 12 Indoor Championship, Feb. 24-25, will be the next major meet.
In Seattle, the meet is also Friday and Saturday, but the Sooners will only be competing in the distance events which means two races on Friday night and five races on Saturday. Brittany Tretbar and Eric Alldritt will be competing in the 5,000-meter run on Friday evening at 8:05 p.m. (CT) and 9:05 p.m. (CT), respectively.
The remaining runners will run their events Saturday afternoon late into the evening, starting with Blake Yount and Jacob Goldberg in the 800-meter run at 1:55 p.m. (CT). Isabella Rose is in section 2 of the 3,000-meter run at 2:20 p.m. (CT). At 3:35 p.m. (CT), Belle Wallace will run the women's mile. Following Wallace will be Jacob Burcham in the men's mile race, starting at 4:15 p.m. (CT). Elena Arriaza is also scheduled to run the 3,000-meter race, but is in section 3, which starts at 6:40 p.m. (CT). The final race will be at 7:05 p.m. (CT) with Dylan Blankenbaker in the 3,000-meter run.
For Burcham, this meet holds a special spot in his career. Last year, he finished second in the mile and posted a career-best 3:57.46 for his first indoor sub-four-minute mile. The time, nearly three seconds faster than his previous best, moved him from sixth to second on the all-time OU career list.
“I think the goal this week is stepping up to the level of competition. The best way to put it is that the competition makes it mandatory that people step up. All we can ask is for people to take the next step up. As long as our team takes one step forward this week, then we're going to be okay. That's really it. We don't have a choice but to take one step forward -- don't try to take two or three steps forward. Everyone, though, must take one step forward.”
There will be live results for the Tyson Invitational at Flash Results. With the quality of the field, the SEC Network+ and WatchESPN will have live action on Friday at 4:30 p.m. (CT) and Saturday starting at 1 p.m. (CT.) The Husky Classic will be streamed on FloTrack which require a subscription. Live results will be available at GoHuskies.com. A recap of each of the meets will be posted at the conclusion of each day on Soonersports.com. As always, follow Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (OU_Track) for meet updates.
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