OSU Prepares for Regular Season Finale

Friday, May 5

Fayetteville, Ark.

All Day

Oklahoma State University

Arkansas Twilight

May 04, 2017 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

The Basics
Oklahoma State wraps up the regular season Friday with a jump across the state line to Arkansas for the Arkansas Twilight. It will be OSU's last chance to pick up qualifying marks before the postseason begins in Lawrence, Kansas, next weekend.

Follow the Meet
To follow along with the Arkansas Twilight, visit arkansasrazorbacks.com to find live results provided by Flash Results.
OSU's day begins with the meet opener, the hammer throw, and the Cowboys and Cowgirls will compete in more than a dozen events before the 4X400-meter relays conclude the competition and the regular season at 8:50 p.m. CT.
A complete schedule of events can be found on page three of the meet notes.

Broadcast Information
The Arkansas Twilight will be available to watch on a live stream on SECNetwork+ on WatchESPN or ESPN3.
The stream begins at 6 p.m., on the site and runs until the conclusion of the final events, the men's and women's 4X400-meter relays.

What to Watch For – Arkansas Twilight
The last meet of regular season will include a large group of athletes competing in a variety of events at the Arkansas Twilight this weekend, including Meghan McGrath's pole vault debut and Taylor Peaster's return to Fayetteville for the pole vault as well.
Senior Natalie Baker will wrap up her OSU career at the Arkansas Twilight, while a handful of freshmen return to competition as the season comes to a close.
Ieva Zarankaite already owns some of the best marks in the conference and in the country in the shot put and discus throw, but looks to move up into a more favorable position this weekend with Cowgirl teammates Katie Kehl and Megan Honas, who both are seeking to clinch a qualifying position before the deadline.
Ambra Wesley is fresh off the fastest 400-meter split of her career that propelled the Cowgirls into the 4X400-meter final at the Drake Relays. Wesley's split in an open event would put her on the fringe of a qualifying time, and the Cowgirl junior returns to the open 400 this weekend in Fayetteville.
Logan Daily has inched closer and closer to that 100-meter qualifying mark and puts his speed to the test one last time before the conference championships.
Wesley Hallof was an All-Big 12 performer a season ago but sits at 17th heading into the regular season finale. Last season, Hallof entered the Big 12 Championships with the 17th-best throw in the conference, but finished eight when it mattered most.

Last Time Out
The Cowgirls completed a historic sweep of the distance relays and the Cowboys took the DMR and 4X1,600-meter relay titles at the Drake Relays last weekend.
The wins marked the second time in three seasons that the Pokes have swept the 4X1,600 and DMRs as they last did it in 2015 and didn't attend the Drake Relays in 2016.
Overall, the Cowgirl quartet won the race in 19:07.13, just nine seconds off the meet record that OSU set two years ago on their way to the historic distance relay sweep.
Once Josh Thompson claimed the lead for the Pokes during his anchor leg, he never gave it back up and the Cowboys cemented OSU's second sweep of the 4X1,600-meter relays in three years with a time of 16:18.80.
The quartet of Clara Nichols, Kaytlyn Larson, Kaylee Dodd and Savannah Camacho ran away with OSU's third relay win of the weekend in 8:37.20, nearly four seconds better than second-place Iowa State.
Immediately after the Cowgirls' victory, Kaela Edwards toed the line in the 1,500-meter invitational run against some of North America's best.Edwards finished 10th among the elite in 4:18.23, which is good enough for top-25 in the region.
Rainfall throughout the day slowed the track down significantly, Saturday, but the Cowgirl quartet of Molly Sughroue, Ambra Wesley, Kaylee Dodd and Kaela Edwards still ran away with the DMR title by five seconds.
The Cowboys came away with a close win in the men's DMR, topping Minnesota by less than a second, and overcoming from a three-second deficit heading into the anchor-leg.

Cowgirls Complete Historic Sweep at Drake
When the Cowgirls made the trip to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Drake Relays in 2015, they made history by sweeping the distance relays and setting the meet record in the 4X1,600-meter relay.
The women of OSU returned to Des Moines in 2017, and did the same. It marked the first time a team has swept the distance relays at the108-year meet twice, and only four teams have done it once.
Clara Nichols, Kaylee Dodd, Molly Sughroue, Kaytlyn Larson, Ambra Wesley, Abbie Hetherington, Anna Boyert, Savannah Camacho and Kaela Edwards made up the three squads that ran into the history books last weekend.
Wesley ran the DMR, 4X400 prelim and final, giving her the busiest schedule of the event, but Camacho, Sughroue and Dodd all ran on two of the three relays.
The times recorded were not as fast as 2015 because of inclement weather, but the Cowgirls picked up multiple-second wins in each event on their way to finishing second in the Hy-Vee Cup standings with 22 points.

Cowboys Hold Firm at 24
The Oklahoma State Cowboys didn't budge in the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, holding their place at 24 for the second straight week.
Individually, Josh Thompson and Jacob Fincham-Dukes have provided the Pokes with the most points in the poll with their No. 2 marks in the 1,500-meter run and long jump, respectively. Thompson's mark is worth 26 points, while Fincham-Dukes gives OSU 24.
Craig Nowak is not too far behind with his No. 4 1,500-meter time in the region, as he provides 22 points to OSU's 97-point total.
Despite being the only Cowboy to own two top-15 marks in the region, Hassan Abdi brings 12 points.
Texas Tech leads the conference at No. 3 in the nation, while Texas comes in at 9, Baylor 14, Kansas 16 and OSU makes it five Big 12 teams in the top-25.

OSU Cross Country Course Selected as NCAA Host Site
The Oklahoma State Cross Country Course has been selected as the host site for the 2019 NCAA Midwest Regional Cross Country Championships and the 2020 NCAA Cross Country Championships.
The event in 2020 will mark the first time in school history that Stillwater has hosted an NCAA Championships event for either cross country or track and field.
The 2019 regional will be the third time OSU has hosted that event and the first time since 2008.
The Cowboys have won 13 of the last 14 Midwest Regional crowns, including two when hosting, and the Cowgirls have won three since 2001 with their most recent coming in 2015.
Under coach Dave Smith, the Cowboys have been staples in the NCAA top-15 at the championships, finishing in that position in every year but one since 2005.
The 2019 NCAA Midwest Regional is scheduled for Nov. 15 and the 2020 NCAA Championships will take place on Nov. 21.

Seniors Primed for Big Postseason
Oklahoma State graduates one of the most decorated senior classes in school history this spring, but before they move on from Stillwater, several OSU seniors are in position to make a postseason run.
Six seniors currently own marks in the NCAA West Region's top-50, including Joshua Thompson, Craig Nowak, Megan Honas, Savannah Camacho, Clara Nichols and Kaela Edwards.
Those six seniors own a combined four school records, more than 15 All-America honors and more than a dozen Big 12 titles since 2013.
Thompson and Nowak both hold two of the top-five 1,500-meter times in the NCAA this season, Camacho and Nichols have top-25 800-meter times, Edwards and Camacho have top-20 1,500-meter times and Honas is in position to qualify for her second-straight West Regional in the javelin since joining the program last year.
Thompson also adds to OSU's long list of junior-college transfer success stories as the Cowboy has gone undefeated at Big 12 Indoor Championships and has become one of the most decorated Cowboys in history in just two seasons in orange and black.
The senior class competes at their last Big 12 Championship event May 12-14, but will likely move on to the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds at the end of the month in Austin, Texas, seeking a trip to Eugene, Oregon, for the National Championships.