OSU Set to Make Penn Relays Return

Thursday, April 28

Philadelphia

All Day

Oklahoma State University

Penn Relays

Edwards at 2015 Big 12 Indoor Championships

April 28, 2016 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

MEET NOTES

The Basics
            The distance medley relay teams and the Cowgirl 4X800-meter team head to the historic Penn Relays, while a majority of the team makes its way to the relatively new Rock Chalk Classic in Lawrence, Kansas, and the Payton Jordan Invitational back in Palo Alto, California.

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 pennrelays.com to follow the historic meet, gocardinal.com for Payton Jordan information and kuathletics.com for the Rock Chalk Classic.

Broadcast Information
            The Penn Relays and Payton Jordan Invitational will be streamed live on FloTrack and the Rock Chalk Classic will not be televised or available online.

Meet Format/Schedule (All Times CT)
            The Penn Relays kick off Wednesday, but the Cowboys don't take the track until Thursday and the Cowgirls run Friday and Saturday.
            The meet in Lawrence, Kansas, is a one-day event Saturday and the full schedule of events can be found online at the school's athletics website.
            Out in California, the Payton Jordan Invitational is also a single-day event, taking place Sunday.

Last Time Out
            The Cowboy All-American Josh Thompson ran in the fast heat of the 1,500-meter run and finished second in a Big 12-leading 3:41.88, good enough for the eight spot on the Cowboy all-time top-10 list.
            His heat produced three times that rank in the top-15 of the West Region, and Thompson's second place finish puts him at third in the West, just three-tenths of a second off Washington's Izaic Yorks in the top spot.
            Cowboy senior Craig Nowak won his first 5,000-meter race of the season, finishing in 13:54.37 in Palo Alto for a top-15 spot in the West and the No. 2 time in the Big 12.
            It was his first 5,000 of the season and second race of his outdoor campaign after opening with a 1,500-meter tune-up back at Stanford in early April.
            With his time from Friday, the Cowboys have the two fastest times in the Big 12 and join Oregon, Arkansas and Colorado as the only schools with two athletes in the top-15 in the 5,000 in the West Region.
            Also in the men's 5,000 was Vegard Oelstad who opened up his senior season with a 14:02.13 and a fifth place finish.
            Jennifer Celis ran a 4:22.77 in the women's 1,500 to take third place in her heat and 11th overall in a competitive field. Her time is sixth in the Big 12 and adds to the Cowgirls' conference dominance in the event. With Celis now owning a top-10 time herself, the Cowgirls make up six of the 10 fastest times in the conference this year.
            Over in Arkansas, Friday was a day for the field athletes with Jacob Fincham-Dukes taking sixth in the long jump and Katie Kehl setting a near personal best 45-28/148-7 in the discus throw, though her throw from earlier in the season is sixth in Cowgirl top-10.
            Anna Boyert finished third in the 1,500 in 4:20.11, topping her personal best by three seconds and jumping to fourth in the Big 12 to give the four best best times in the conference.
            Freshman thrower Baylor Nelson finished fifth in the hammer with a personal best heave of 43.18m/41-8 feet.
            John Teeters opened up his outdoor season in the 100 at the John McDonnell Invitational, finishing third and running a 10.16.
            His time is fourth in the West Region and third in the ultra-competitive Big 12.

A Look Back
            Chad Noelle cruised to a top time in the NCAA and ran the third fastest time in school history at last season's Payton Jordan Invitational. He ran a 3:38.35 to win the race and add to in his undefeated season that ended with him winning the national title in the same event.
            In the women's steeplechase, Ingeborg Loevnes broke her own school record by finishing in 9:48.89, just three seconds off an Olympic standard time.
            It was the fifth best time in the nation at the time and Loevnes went on to qualify for the NCAA Championships, but did not run.
            National champions Natalja Piliusina and Kaela Edwards had impressive days in the 800, but in different sections.
            Piliusina finished third in section one, in the 800 in a near personal best 2:01.93. Edwards, in section two, finished in 2:02.63, but won her heat, which also included All-American Savannah Camacho. She finished 2:03.70.

Cowgirls Head to Penn Relays With High Hopes
            It's the first time in a while that the Cowgirls have made the trip to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays, but now that they're back, they have big plans.
            The Cowgirls will run in both the 4X800-meter relay and distance medley relay this weekend, starting with the distance medley relay Thursday.
            The quartet is coming off their second-straight Big 12 Indoor title in the event as well as a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships and a win at the Drake Relays a season ago.
            Though the Cowgirl team didn't make the trip out east last season, they ran away with the DMR title at Drake in 11:15.03, snapping a 25-year winless drought at the competition. They also won the 4X800 and broke the Drake Relays record en route to a 4X1600-meter title as well.
            While the competition is expected to be stiff in the City of Brotherly Love, with meet record holder Villanova and Georgetown toeing the line with the Cowgirls in the DMR, and Oregon headlining the 4X800 competition, the Pokes have as good a shot as any team to come away with silverware from the weekend.

Cowgirls Stay Put at No. 21 in USTFCCCA Poll
            Nothing changed, ranking-wise, for the Cowgirls this week, remaining at 21 in the latest United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association top-25, but Cowgirl athletes made moves in their respective event categories.
            Kaela Edwards' 2:01.93 in the 800-meter run from two weeks ago continues to lead the Big 12 conference and the nation, and the Cowgirl with arguably the best range in the nation also sits at a respectable 11th in the West Region in the 1,500-meter run.
            The Cowgirls have three other athletes in the top-50 for the West Regional 1,500, including Savannah Camacho at 13th, Ingeborg Loevnes at 28 and, the most recent addition to the list, Anna Boyert, whose 4:20.11 is 30th.
            Chase Ealey's shot put heave of 17.71m/58-1.25 is second in the West Region and Clara Nichols' 800-meter personal best of 2:04.45 gives her the seventh Cowgirl top-15 spot at eighth.
            For the Cowboys, while they dropped out of the ranking for the first time since the preseason, John Teeters, Josh Thompson and Craig Nowak joined Cerake Geberkidane and Tre'Tez Kinnaird this weekend with top-20 regional times in their respective events.
            Teeters' 10.16 opener in the 100-meter dash is good for fourth in the West, Thompson's 1,500-meter time is fourth-best and Nowak's 12-second personal best in the 5,000-meter run is good for 14th.

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.