NCAA Indoor Championship Recap

The notes you’re about to see are as I saw it live or as I wrote it looking at the mark/time after the event.

Here is how I saw the action this weekend!

Pippi Lotta Enok:
60 Hurdles- 8.52, 1013. Very slow out of the blocks. Saving grace was not hitting a hurdle. Solid finish. Personal best.
High Jump- 1.78m (5-10), 953. She killed it. Nothing more to say here.
Shot Put- 12.12m (39-9 1/4), 669. 2/3 throws were legal and both were PR’s. Enok is peaking right now. Needs a solid Long Jump to stay in contention for top 5!
Long Jump- 6.18m (20-3 1/2), 905. I said she needed a solid Long Jump, how about a PR and a Long Jump that puts her -83 points behind the current leader through this event?! She has a chance to win this! One more PR and she wins it!!
800m- 2:17.35, 860. My only complaint here was her start and unwillingness or just not wanting to go with the lead group. She kept herself in “no-man’s-land” being between groups. I think had she gone with the back of the lead group, she hits 2:15-2:16. Doesn’t win it for her, but you never know what happens if you put yourself there.
Total Score- 4400, school record. She PR’d in every single event. She needed Notre Dame’s Jadin O’Brien (National Champion) to run a 2:21.56 or slower and USC’s Allie Jones (National Runner-Up) to run a 2:18.03 or slower to come out on top as National Champion. But this experience and how well she performed and grew in this meet alone tells me that she will wear that crown before it’s all said and done. Best performance of the meet as far as I’m concerned.
Place/Points- 3rd, 6 points

Kristo Simulask:
Day 1
60m- 6.85, 936. A little slower out of the blocks, but you could see where he turned on the jets. Better start probably gets him close to sub-6.80. Very solid to his weekend regardless of how he performed out of the blocks.
Long Jump- 7.21m, 864. Not able to see any of his jumps as the coverage focused on the other group.
Shot Put- 14.55m (47-9), 762. Only able to see his final and best throw of the day. From the 1 throw, he looked really good.
High Jump- 1.91m (6-3 1/4), 723. Passed on the jump for 1.94m. This probably was a mistake as he left some points and positioning on the track by not hitting 1.97m. This event set him back big time. He’s going to need a HUGE day 2 to finish top 8

Day 2
60 Hurdles- DNS
Pole Vault- DNS
1000m-DNS
Place/Points- DNF
Wasn’t able to find why he didn’t finish the meet. With the performances he had, it would’ve been hard to finish top 10 but I thought there was a good chance he would.

Olivia Lueking:
Pole Vault- 4.45m (14′ 7.25″). Personal Best performance for Olivia. Seemed like she was due to breakout and have a huge performance, and she did just that. Had she not split her first jump of the meet, we’re talking about split National Champions in the Pole Vault with Amanda Fassold and Olivia Lueking.
Place/Points- 2nd, 8 points

Nikaoli Williams:
Long Jump- 7.79m (25′ 6.75″). Didn’t jump close to his PR and it cost him a top 10 finish. The way he came on near the end of the Indoor Season, I expect this not to hold him back any, but to propel him forward in a very good way for Outdoor Season!
Place/Points- 11th, 0 points

Vernon Turner:
High Jump- 2.21m (7′ 3″). Wasn’t able to watch him jump but looking at the results alone, he tied his season best and was very close to repeating as Indoor National Champion in the High Jump. Expect a huge Outdoor Season from Vernon!
Place/Points- 2nd, 8 points

4×400 Relay received a DQ on Rule 7.5-3a “Flagrantly Impeded”
I’m fuming over this ruling. This was a TERRIBLE ruling. In no way did they imped anyone.
Now if you want to call them for illegal contact, sure. But by no means did they do anything in this race that Baylor or Arizona State didn’t do (multiple times) either.
Also, it should NOT take you 15 minutes to come to this ruling also.
Texas A&M created contact in their race. No DQ.
Like I said earlier, Baylor AND Arizona State created contact before OU’s. No DQ.
When officials get in the way of “trying to do the right thing” when they haven’t done it all meet. It makes the sport look bad. I’m disgusted at that DQ ruling by the officials and the length it took them to review it as well.
As far as I’m concerned, OU Men’s 4x400m broke their own 4x400m School Record and finished 2nd place. And I will mark it on my “Indoor Top Performance” article as well.

What a wonderful Indoor Season OU had.
No team titles or anything like that, but for a program that Coach Tim Langford is having to build basically from nothing… this is the 2nd straight year of fantastic performances for the Indoor Season. OU Track and Field is definitely heading in the right direction!

What’s next for OU Track and Field?

Outdoor Season starts this week for OU Track and Field. They’ll be heading to Freeport, Grand Bahamas for the Island Relays Bahamas Invitational.

I’ll get more information on Thursday about that meet.

But I’ll try and get with Coach Langford next week, as they have the week off from a meet, to get some quotes from him!

Picture Credit: OU Track and Field on Instagram