Multiple athletes qualify for NCCAA Indoor Championships

Photo by: Henoc Kivuye

 

Prior to the Central Oklahoma Indoor Invitational on Saturday, Oklahoma Christian University’s track and field team had already qualified for the National Christian College Indoor Championships in 26 events.

Head Coach of Men and Women’s Track and Field Randy Heath’s goal for the meet was to qualify even more athletes for nationals.

“The goal of this meet is to try to still qualify some more [athletes] for the National Christian College meet, and to get better in their own events, because after this we only have one more meet left before we go,” Heath said. “It will be back down at Norman, and Oklahoma Baptist will be the sponsor of it.”

The Eagles entered 30 athletes into the meet – the largest number for Oklahoma Christian yet.

“[This meet was a] middle-size meet, so we probably have 12 schools, 12 different colleges,” Heath said.

The Eagles’ 4×200 relay team, comprised of freshman Joshua Jones, freshman Austin Kruzich, junior Jamal George and senior Winston Ogletree, came in first place with a final time of 1:33.91.

The goal was to give encouragement, strength and motivation for athletes to keep going, according to Jones.

“My goal is to catch up with the guy ahead of me, [and] when I do, to catch up with the guy ahead of me again until I am the guy in the lead, and then I just maintain it,” Jones said. “To get first place, you want to win.”

According to Heath, training for this meet was difficult due to the recent ice and snow storms that hit Edmond.

“We do not have an indoor facility for everybody to run indoors, but we do have the old barn,” Heath said. “We have a practice in there for field events, sprinters and hurdles, but we are limited. We cannot do much more than that in there, so our distance runners, they cannot go outside in this. It is extremely cold, and long sprinters, they miss more workouts too because the weather has impacted this week unusually. We are outside at least once to twice a week, but we have not been outside this week.”

However, the poor weather conditions did not hinder some athletes from excelling at the meet.

“I think the meet went really very well for me, personally,” Jones said. “Because I was only in the two relays – so in the relays I was in, I did really very well.”

Jones participated in the 4×400 meter race, and the Eagles took sixth place out of 16 teams with a final time of 3:31.81. The squad also consisted of Ogletree and sophomores Trenton Parker and Austin Wallace.

Jones said the greatest challenge of an event is controlling his nerves before each race.

“The hardest part, like for the race [is] probably the nerves for me,” Jones said. “I just get really nervous before every race and I focus, but I just get really nervous.”

According to Jones, watching competition is not only interesting in the race, but can also help him understand the other team’s strategy.

“For the relays, probably watching it [is the most interesting],” Jones said. “For the 4×4 I am an anchor, which is the last leg, so I get to watch the three guys before me do the whole race and then, by the time I get it, I have a good idea where I should be by the end of the race; but I think the most interesting part is watching. There is not much interesting about running it, but watching it is really interesting – seeing every team’s strategy, if they have one.”

The Lady Eagles’ 4×200-yard relay team also posted a successful finish, taking third place with a final time of 1:48.89. The team consisted of sophomore Rebecca Bloodworth, senior Wilmina Gley, senior Somer Helms and senior Andrea Dennis.

The same athletes participated in the 4×400, and their efforts earned fifth place overall in 2:11.71.

Despite the pressure of qualifying for nationals in her event, Helms performed well in the 200-meter. She took 11th out of 44 competitors with a final time of 27.36.

“I think it was very good, and everybody ran with confidence,” Helms said. “[I] just [want] to run better than the last meet, and we ran faster than we were projected to run. The hard part is probably staying focused to run for the team for the relay.”

The Lady Eagles also did well in several other events. Sophomore Rebecca Bloodworth and freshman Jerisha Fields both competed in the 200-meter and came in 12th and 27th place out of 44 competitors in 27.41 seconds and 28.68 seconds, respectively. Freshman Maci Rich also finished 12th place in the 800 meter with a time of 2:29.67.

The Eagles’ next meet is the Oklahoma Baptist University Indoor Invitational tomorrow, which will be the last meet before the NCCAA Indoor Championships  on Feb. 21 and 22.