Four Sooners Headed to NCAA Championships

NORMAN – Four Sooners learned late Tuesday that they will be participating in the upcoming NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship. Jess Woodard (shot put), Baileh Simms (long jump), Ama Pipi (200-meter dash) and Hayden McClain (triple jump) finished the season ranked among the top 16 in the country to earn a ticket to College Station. The meet, hosted by Texas A&M at Gilliam Indoor Track, opens at noon Friday, March 10, and the final event is scheduled to start Saturday at 6:45 p.m.

Pipi and McClain have already added a postseason title to their career résumés with Big 12 titles last weekend in the same events they will compete in during the NCAA meet. Qualifying for the NCAA Division I meet is based on marks and the conference meet helps only if a better mark is earned.

Woodard's qualifying mark of 57-4.25 was posted at the J.D. Martin Invitational on Jan. 28. It ranks as the fifth best heading into the meet. Simms, who will take a 20-10.50 into the NCAA meet, got that mark at the Big 12. She ranks 13th heading into the meet. Pipi's qualifying time of 23.19, which ranks 13th heading into the meet, got that personal best in winning the 200-meter title at the Big 12 meet. McClain got his qualifying mark of 54-4.00 at the Tyson Invitational Feb. 11 in Fayetteville.

For Woodard, this will be her third consecutive NCAA trip as she qualified for the indoor and outdoor meets last year. The Marlton, N.J. junior finished eighth in the indoor shot and third in the outdoor shot, earning first-team All-America honors in both. She finished second in the shot put at the 2017 Big 12 meet as she scored team points in two events at the Big 12, shot and weight throw, for a third consecutive year.

She has won four events in 2017 – the Sooner Opener, the Mark Colligan Memorial Invitational, the J.D. Martin and the Armory Track Invitational. Her career best entering the season was a 55-11.00 and she has improved that twice this season, currently sitting at 57-4.25, her NCAA qualifying mark. She has thrown 53-0.00-plus in all six competitions in 2017.

She will open the competition for the Sooners when the women's shot put begins at 5:15 p.m. Friday.

Simms, a senior from Seattle, Wash., will be making the first trip of her career to the NCAA Indoor. She qualified for the NCAA Outdoor last year and qualified for the outdoor meet in 2015 while competing for Portland State. She finished third in the long jump at the Big 12 Indoor last weekend and finished seventh a year ago at the Big 12. She had a career best of 20-5.00 when her senior season opened. She improved that mark twice this season, leading to her qualifying jump of 20-10.50.

She has won the long jump in three of her five meets this season, opening the season with three consecutive victories – Sooner Opener, Mark Colligan Memorial Invitational and the Armory Track Invitational. An equally talented sprinter, she focused on sprints at the J.D. Martin Invitational and did not compete in that event in the long jump. She has recorded marks of 19-0.00-plus five times in 2017.

She will be the second Sooner to compete as the women's long jump is set for 7:10 p.m. Friday.

Pipi, who calls London, England, home, has had an amazing junior season. She became the first Sooner woman to win a Big 12 Indoor title in the 200 in school history last Saturday. Her time of 23.19 in the 200 was the 10th best of the week that ended Feb. 26. In addition to winning the 200 title, Pipi showed her versatility, finishing fourth in the 60-meter dash with a 7.46 and running the first leg of OU's 1600-meter relay that finished fourth. She has scored in at least two events in every Big 12 Indoor Championship she has competed in (2017, 2016, 2015).

She opened 2017 holding a career best of 23.95, run at altitude in 2016. She has improved that mark three times this year. Her Big 12 win was her third of the season. She ranked ninth on the all-time list for the Sooners in the 200 when the season started and has jumped to the fifth spot. She also has made significant changes to her PR in the 60 as the season progressed. She entered the season with a 7.55 that did not rank in the top 10 in school history. Her current PR in the 60, 7.38, ranks ninth.

Her Big 12 title marked her third victory of the season in the 200. She also finished first at the Mark Colligan Memorial Invitational and the Armory Track Invitational. This will mark her first time to compete at the NCAA Indoor but she is not without NCAA experience as she participated in the 2015 and 2016 NCAA outdoor meets.

The semifinal of her event will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday and the final will be at 5:40 p.m. Saturday. Eight runners will advance to the final.

McClain repeated as the Big 12's triple jump champion. He won the title in 2016 with a 52-6.75. His winning jump last Saturday was 54-1.25 and came on his final jump. He, too, has had a very successful senior year, bringing a career best of 52-8.75 into the season. His first meet of the season, the Sooner Opener, brought a change to his PR, boosting it to 53-9.00. That also was his only other win in 2017. He improved his PR again at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville. He finished third in the invitational division with his 54-4.00. He posted 50-0.00-plus jumps in four of his five competitions. He did not compete in the J.D. Martin Invitational.

McClain qualified for the NCAA Indoor in 2016 but hampered during the competition because of an injury. He also has qualified for the NCAA West prelims every year of his Sooner career. He started the 2017 season fifth on the all-time OU indoor best list 52-8.75. He has jumped to second with his current career mark. A consistent performer in big meets, McClain has finished second twice in the Big 12 to go along with his two titles.

His event is scheduled to start competition at 5 p.m. Saturday.

“Even more so than outdoors or cross country, indoor nationals is an extremely exclusive club," says head coach Jim VanHootegem. "You can't just be an outstanding performer. You need to have had a really outstanding performance. These people have put together outstanding performances. I think all of them have had marks that either are extremely close or would have been qualifiers as a second-best mark. The best thing is that they are not just people who have achieved these performances, but achieved that performance level on at least two different occasions.

"With that said, we feel really good about our qualifiers. Number one, we see the honor of what it is to make a meet like this. Number two, we feel good about the people going in because they have been consistent performers this year.”