NORMAN, Okla. – To say that the Sooner track and field teams are in for a new experience might be an understatement as OU prepares to travel to Ames, Iowa, for the 18th annual Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships Friday and Saturday. The two-day meet will be held at the Lied Recreation Center.
The Sooner men won the Big 12 Indoor team title in 2010 at the Lied Recreation Center and have finished in the top half of the league’s indoor meet 10 times. The OU women’s team has finished fourth or tied for fourth three times and that marks its all-time best Big 12 indoor finish.
On the men’s side, five individuals who scored in the 2013 meet will be competing again this weekend. Additionally, two of the four runners who made up the conference champion distance medley relay last year are also heading back to Ames.
For the women, none of the individual placers in last year’s meet are back and two of OU’s 4×400-meter relay runners return after a seventh-place finish in 2013.
Still, after reviewing the final rankings list before the championships begin, the Sooners are taking several student-athletes to the meet who have the potential to score points.
For the women, freshman Daye Shon Roberson leads the way, ranking in the Big 12’s top 10 in two events, the 60 and the 200, and the top 11 in the 400. Georgiana Tamez Reyna has a top 10 ranking in the 60 hurdles. The Sooners have a pair of runners ranked in the longer races – Kelsey McKee is fourth in the 1000 and Molly Williams is currently 10th in the 3000.
OU has athletes tied for eighth in the pole vault in Morgan Reynolds and Emily Savage and the Sooners have two of the top 10 – Avione Allgood and Brooke Garner – in the shot put.
The event to watch for the OU women may be the weight throw as four of the top eight Big 12 throwers will be competing for the Sooners. Rylee Rackley leads the way with the third best mark on the conference rankings list. Julia Reedy is ranked fifth followed by Sarah Tolson, seventh, and Garner in eighth. Not surprisingly, all four Sooners have posted career-best marks in the weight throw in 2014.
For the OU men, a quick review shows that the Sooner points could come from a variety of events. Waymon Storey is ranked fourth in the 200 and 11th in the 60 and Storey scored in the 200 a year ago. Ethan Baker is tied for eighth in the 400 and Allen Eke is ranked fourth in the 800 and 10th in the 600 –yard run.
Starting with the 800, the men have runners in the top 10 in every event up to the 5,000-meter run. Malcom Wankel is sixth in the 800 behind teammate Eke and Jacob Burcham is sixth in the 1000. Alex Deir, after his showing at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Saturday, is ranked second in the mile and he is joined in that event’s top 10 by Abbabiya Simbassa, sixth, and Burcham, eighth.
Simbassa and Brandon Doughty, another Sooner who scored points as an individual a year ago, are ranked in the top 10 in the 3,000. Simbassa has the second best time in the conference in the 5,000 and Eric Graf ranks 10th in that event.
Matt Wicks is another Sooner who produced points a year and he is tied for sixth in the 60-meter hurdles heading into this week’s meet. The OU men, who won the DMR conference title in 2013, are currently ranked second in the league in the relay in 2014 after posting a 9:32.92 at the Alex Wilson on Saturday. The relay also ranks 13th nationally as nine of the top 13 times in the men’s DMR were registered Saturday at the Alex Wilson.
In the field events, Hayden McClain, second in the triple jump; Everette Favor, third in the pole vault, and Austin Perry, third in the shot put, lead the way. OU has other top-10 ranked athletes in the shot put and weight throw as well. Tyler Sergent is 10th in the shot put and Charles Nguyen is tied for fifth in the weight throw. Both Perry and Sergent scored in the shot put in the 2013 meet.
Action in the multi events begins at 10 a.m. Friday in the Lied Center and OU athletes will begin competition in the track and field events at 3 p.m. On Saturday, running events start at 11 a.m. followed by the remaining field event finals beginning at noon.