OSU Track and Field Heads to Arkansas, Stanford

Friday, April 22

Palo Alto, Calif.

All Day

Oklahoma State University

Stanford Twilight

April 21, 2016 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

MEET NOTES

The Basics
            Oklahoma State gets set to divide and conquer two meets this weekend, heading out west to Palo Alto, California, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, for the second time this season to compete in the Stanford Twilight and John McDonnell Invitational.

Follow the Meet
            Oklahoma State's results and a full recap of the competitions will be available on okstate.com following the conclusion of each day.
            Visit gostanford.com for Stanford Twilight information and arkansasrazorbacks.com for the John McDonnell live stats.

Broadcast Information
            The John McDonnell Invitational will not be broadcast or streamed live, but the Stanford Twilight will be available to watch live on FloTrack with a premium subscription.

Meet Format/Schedule (All Times CT)
            The John McDonnell Invitational starts Friday with mostly high school events, but the university long jump, discus and high jump for both men and women will also take place then.
            Saturday is packed with events, starting at 11 a.m. with the hammer throws.
            The running events start at 2 p.m. with the 100-meter hurdles and conclude after the men's and women's 4X400-meter relay, tentatively scheduled for 7:30.
            The Stanford Twilight meet is a one-day meet with all events taking place Friday. For the full schedule, visit gostanford.com

Last Time Out
            Clara Nichols finished second in the 800-meter run in 2:04.64, but led all collegiate athletes by nearly two seconds.
            Her time is the best in the Big 12 by a second and is the sixth-best in the West Region. It replaces her time from just a week ago as the fifth-best time in Cowgirl history.
            NCAA champion Kaela Edwards finished fifth in the event with a personal best time of 4:17.07 and Ingeborg Loevnes' 4:20.04 got her 12th.
            Edwards ran a day later in the 800-meter run and finished second with the NCAA-leading time of 2:01.97.
            In the same race Clara Nichols brought her personal best down to 2:04.45.
            In the men's 1,500 at the Bryan Clay Invite, Matthew Fayers ran a 3:44.57 to finish seventh in the fastest heat of the competition. He takes the Cowboy season lead in the 1,500 and jumps to No. 2 in the conference after just one race in the outdoor season.
            In the men's 800, Tre'Tez Kinnaird took to the track for the second time this outdoor season and set a new season's best with a 1:48.43.
            Kinnaird finished fourth in his heat and ninth overall, but his time does move him up on the Cowboy top-10 all-time list to third, a little more than a second away from the No. 1 time. His time also puts him in the top-10 of the West Region.

A Look Back
            At last season's John McDonnell Invitational, the men's 4X100-meter relay team dashed to a first-place finish. Sharod Selph, Tyler Jackson, Arlando Brewer-Johnson and John Teeters sprinted the four legs in 40.10, edging Arkansas by eight-hundredths of a second.
            The relay race was Teeters' first taste of outdoor competition last season and this year he is scheduled to open up again at John McDonnell in the 100.
            The sprinters continued to shined for the Pokes as Brewer-Johnson set a personal best in the 100-meter dash final, running a 10.58, winning his heat and finishing third overall. Selph joined Brewer-Johnson in the 100 and also represented well for the OSU program. He ran a 10.60 and finished fourth in the event.
            OSU was also well represented in the men's 1,500-meter run, as five Cowboys finished in the top-10 and four of them finished in the top five.
            The Cowboys swept the top-four and were led by All-American Chad Noelle, who won the 1,500 in 3:43.80. A trio of Cowboys, Matthew Fayers, Justin Vilhauer and Anthoney Armstrong, finished behind Noelle in second, third and fourth, respectively.
            In the women's 4X400-meter relay, the OSU team of Stephanie Ferrante, Kaela Edwards, Danielle Coleman and Ambra Wesley finished fourth, running the sixth fastest race in school history.
            Edwards went on to run the open 400-meter run, which was her outdoor season debut and her first time running the event as a Cowgirl. She also ran the 4X400 at the Big 12 Indoor Championships this past season.

Cowboys, Cowgirls Jump Two Spots in Week Three Poll
            With a strong outing from a small group this past weekend, the Oklahoma State track and field teams both rose two spots in week three of the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's top-25.
            The Cowboys have gone from starting the season unranked to 17th and the Cowgirls have rebounded back to 21 where they sat after week one.
            The Cowgirls' rise was in part thanks to the return of national champion Kaela Edwards, who took the national lead in the 800-meter run with a 2:01.97 from the Mt. SAC Relays, and ran the seventh-best 1,500-meter time in the West Region at the same venue.
            Five Cowboys have times in the regional top-50 with newcomer Tre'Tez Kinnaird and All-American Matthew Fayers joining Cerake Geberkidane, Jacob Fincham-Dukes and Simon Imagbe this week with their times in the 800-and 1500-meter runs.
            As for the Cowgirls, Edwards, Clara Nichols, Savannah Camacho and Chase Ealey headline a long list of Cowgirls with top-50 marks, each holding top-10 regional marks and Ealey and Edwards claiming the top spot in the shot put and 800, respectively.

Edwards Named USTFCCCA Athlete of The Week
            After debuting with a personal best 2:01.97 at the Mt. SAC Relays a week ago, Kaela Edwards was named as the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's Division I Female Athlete of the Week.
            Her stellar performance earned her second place, but she was the top collegiate finisher by a second. She nearly caught Laura Roesler in the final straightaway, but came up just four-tenths of a second short.
            Her time leads the Big 12 and the NCAA, and with her West Region No. 7 1,500-meter time from the same weekend, Edwards received votes for, and is fairly close to making, the Bowerman's elite list of 10.

Season Sweep?
            The Cowboy track and field team is in a unique position heading into the outdoor season.
            For just the second time in conference history, a team has the opportunity to sweep the cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field Big 12 Championships. The only other team in Big 12 history to be in this position was the 2013-14 Cowboy squad that finished third at the outdoor championships.
            The task will not be easy, though. After finishing third at indoors in 2015, the Cowboys finished sixth at last year's outdoor championships, scoring 69 points and bringing home three individual titles, including the 10K, 5K and 1,500-meter championships.
            If OSU can pull off the unprecedented, it will not just be its first Big 12 outdoor title in school history, but its first team title since 1957, when the school was still Oklahoma A&M.
            The Pokes' highest finish at the outdoor championships since joining the Big 12 is the third-place finish from 2014, but OSU did nab back-to-back runners-up finishes in the Big 8 back in 1959 and 1960.