OSU Prepares for Big 12 Championships

February 25, 2016 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

Meet Notes

The Basics
    Oklahoma State heads to Ames, Iowa, this week to compete for a conference title at the Big 12 Indoor Championships where last season the Cowboys took third and the Cowgirls came in fourth.

Follow The Meet
    A video recap will be available on the OSU Athletics YouTube page and results and full recap will be posted on okstate.com following each day's events. For live results of the meet, visit cyclones.com.

Broadcast
    The 2016 Big 12 Indoor Championships will be streamed live on FloTrack with a subscription.

Meet Format/Schedule (All Times CT)
    The pentathlon and heptathlon kick off day one at 10 a.m. Both the track and field events start at 3 p.m. with the women's weight throw and women's mile. The men's and women's distance medley relay closes out the day at 9 p.m.
    Day two's heptathlon and pentathlon begin at 11 a.m., and are to be followed by the women's high jump.
    After the 4X400-meter finals, there will be an awards ceremony at 6 p.m. to conclude the meet.

Last Time Out
    The Oklahoma State track and field program ended its indoor regular season on a high note Saturday at the Alex Wilson Invitational in South Bend, Indiana.
    The Cowboy team finished the relay in 9:26.60, smashing OSU's previous best in 2016 by nine seconds and breaking the 3-year-old school record by two seconds. The impressive feat also put the Cowboys in elite company as they clocked the third fastest time in NCAA history and tied the Alex Wilson Invitational meet record that was set back in 2013.
    Savannah Camacho broke her previous best from just a week ago by two seconds in 2:03.48.
    On the men's side, Bradley Johnson broke into the Cowboys' record book with his 1:50.50 in the 800. He finished seventh in the event and took the No. 7 spot on OSU's top-10 list.

A Look Back
    The Cowgirls finished fourth in the team standings, and the Cowboys took third at last year's Big 12 Indoor Championships.
    The Cowgirls picked up titles from Kaela Edwards' record-breaking performance in the 1,000 meters, Clara Nichols in the 800 meters and the distance medley relay.
    The men's team scored titles from Chad Noelle in the mile, Fabian Clarkson in the 3000, Nick Miller's weight throw crown and the distance medley relay In total, the OSU track and field program took home seven titles this weekend.
    Freshman Kaylee Dodd and All-American Savannah Camacho, who also ran in the 800 meters, finished third and fourth to add 11 points for the Cowgirls.
    Overall, the men's team finished with 94 points for their third-place finish and the women's team scored 77 points on their way to fourth.
    It was the Cowgirls' best in Big 12 history, and also their highest finish ever in an indoor conference meet.
    For the men, John Teeters ran both the 60- and 200-meter dash and picked up his second and third All-Big 12 honors as a result.
    Three Cowboys placed in the top-five of the 1,000-meter final with each recording a personal best. Vegard Oelstad finished second in 2:26.90, Timauntay Jones finished third in 2:27.67 and Brigham Hedges finished fifth in 2:27.86.
    Viktoriia Sadokhina scored in the triple jump for the third-straight time at a Big 12 meet, finishing seventh with a season's best 12.44m/40-9.75.
    The women's mile featured Anna Boyert, Jennifer Celis and eight-time conference champion Natalja Piliusina, who finished 3-4-5, respectively.
    The Cowgirls got five more points when Ingeborg Loevnes placed fifth in the women's 3,000-meter final.
    Chase Ealey scored in the women's shot put, placing sixth, and the women's 4X400 meter relay team made up of Ambra Wesley, Danielle Coleman, Sarah Robinson and Stephanie Ferrante placed eighth.

Distance Dominance
    Oklahoma State returns to Ames, Iowa, this weekend for the Big 12 Championships looking to continue a trend of wins in the distance and middle-distance races on both the men's and women's sides.
    OSU has excelled in the middle-distance and distance races at the conference level since Dave Smith took over as both the men's and women's coach in 2009, taking 12 men's titles in the mile, 3000 and 5000 since 2008 and five in the 800 and mile on the women's side since 2011.
    Both teams have excelled in the distance medley relay as well, and are looking for back-to-back crowns on both sides this Friday at the Lied Recreation Center.

Cowboys at 16, Cowgirls No. 11 in USTFCCCA Poll

After running the third-fastest distance medley relay time in NCAA history, the Oklahoma State Cowboy track and field team jumped eight spots to 16 in the final United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll of the indoor regular season.
The DMR team of Chad Noelle, Brandon Singleton, Tre'Tez Kinnaird and Josh Thompson, smashed the OSU record by two seconds and tied the Alex Wilson Invitational meet record of 9:26.60 to win the event last Saturday.

The quartet joins John Teeters as the only Cowboys to land top-10 NCAA marks in 2016, as Teeters' 6.54 is the joint-best time in the country going into conference championships week.

After soaring 20 spots in the past three weeks, the Cowgirls continued their rise up the rankings this week coming in at No. 11 and claiming the highest rank in Cowgirl history.

The Cowgirls have six marks in the NCAA top-10 this season with Kaela Edwards contributing four of them.

Edwards had the No. 6 time in the 800, the second-best mile time and the seventh-best 3,000-meter time. She ran the anchor leg on the No. 6 DMR mark of the season.
Savannah Camacho and Chase Ealey are the other two Cowgirl top-10 marks.

Camacho's 2:03.48 is the fifth-best 800-meter time and the No. 2 time in Cowgirl history. Ealey owns the No. 3 mark in the shot put and tops the highly competitive Big 12 list. She is one of four athletes from the conference with throws ranked in the top-10 this season.

Both teams head into the Big 12 Championships as the third-highest ranked teams in the conference.