Feb. 21, 2006

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COLUMBIA, Mo.--The Big 12 Indoor Championships are next for the Missouri Tiger Track and Field squads. Twenty-six men and 26 women will forge to Lincoln, Neb., for the two-day meet that begins Friday morning. The Tigers will have four individual and relay championships to defend against some of the best talent in the nation.

Possible Three-Peats in the Works

They say everything comes in threes, the Tigers sure hope so. The Tiger women have won the Distance Medley Relay event in each of the last two years and a third would be the most difficult yet. One constant on those two past squads was Amanda Bales, who ran the anchor, 1600-meter leg in each of those Tiger conference championships in that event. Bales is out of indoor eligibility, and will not be at this year's meet, in uniform. Both the Tiger men and women won their Distance Medley Relay events last season, becoming the first school to accomplish the feat in the conference since 1982, and the days of the Big 8.

Senior Ashley Patten is on a streak of her own, having won two individual events in the past two years at the conference indoor meet. In 2004, Patten won the 800-meter crown and last season, she won the 1000-meter crown.

The Tigers have also won two consecutive conference titles in the women's 800. Patten was the winner in 2004, and Big 12 Freshman of the Year Trisa Nickoley was the Tiger winner in 2005.

Holding their Weight

One of the more impressive stories with the Tiger men this season has been their overwhelming talent in the throwing events. Surely, an NCAA best: five Tigers have achieved an NCAA-provisional qualifying mark in the 35-lb. weight throw event, having all thrown over 62 feet, 4 inches (19.00m) this season. Those five freshmen and sophomores, Chris Rohr, Bobby Musil, Tyler Dailey, Nate Englin, and Jason Morris are also encompassing the top 10 on the conference's performance and thus are all possible team scorers. Rohr, a redshirt freshman, broke Mizzou's freshman record in the event at the Meyo Invitational, throwing 65-5, topping Christian Cantwell's former record.

The Field

There are two power conferences in colligate track and field. One, is the SEC, the other is the Big 12. In the latest Trackwire Top 25, an index used to predict the final national-championship meet scores, five Big 12 men's teams are in the top 25 and two women's squads are as well. Let's take the men's 60-meter dash for an example as the conference's depth. Of the top 21 performers in the NCAA in that event so far this indoor season, eight come from the Big 12, four from Texas alone.

Texas is the team favorite on the men's side, and currently is tied for second in the nation in the Trackwire computation. The Texas men have six squad members in the top 10 of the nation in their respective events. Junior Trey Hardee broke the NCAA record in the heptathlon with 6,208 points in late January, and instead of a being a favorite for 10 conference points for winning the hept, Hardee could easily rack 15 to 20 with individual event performances. Hardee and junior Longhorn Donovan Kilmartin are 1-2 in the conference and 1-2 in the nation so far this season in the men's heptathlon. Mizzou's Hans Uldal, who won the Big 12 Decathlon crown in the outdoor season last year, are among the big players on that multi-event stage.

In total, this meet will feature five Olympians from the 2004 Athens Games, including Mizzou's Uldal who represented home-country Norway, Texas Tech sprinter Andrae Williams (Bahamas) and Nebraska 800-meter runner Dmitrijs Milkevics (Lativa) are two men that were in the games in '04. Nebraska's Egle Uljas (Estonia), is in the top six on the NCAA list in the women's 800 and was also an Olympian for her home country in that event. Nebraska is also home to Canadian-Olympic-hurdler Priscilla Lopes.

Also worth noting, 16 NCAA Champions are among the conference's best and 58 NCAA All-Americans will be in this meet as well. Thanks, Andy Anderson at Nebraska for compiling that one.

On the women's side, Nebraska is favored to win their third-consecutive indoor conference crown.

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Last Year

The Tigers won conference championships in five events including a men-women sweep of the distance medley relay as talked about before. The women's squad was made up of Kristin Hansen, Whittney Stuart, Trisa Nickoley, and Amanda Bales. Only Hansen and Nickoley are returners. The men's conference championship team contained Tipper O'Brien, Jimmie Jones, Neville Miller, and Ryan Hampton and reset the meet record in the event with a 9:47.13 clocking.

Nickoley, later named Big 12 Freshman of the Year for her two conference crowns, won the women's 800 in 2:09.31, after a disqualification was ruled on Iowa State's Ada Anderson.

Patten won the women's 1000 in a meet-record 2:45.96.

And, outgoing senior Conrad Woolsey provided the biggest heart-stopping moment at the 2005 championship, winning the men's shot with a throw of 63-¾ (19.22m) on his final throw. Woolsey, topped Kansas' Sheldon Battle by only an inch.

Border Showdown, presented by Midwest Ford Dealers, Points Up for Grabs

Also at stake are points in the Missouri-Kansas Border Showdown. A point a piece in both the men's and women's competition will be given to the team with the best finish among all conference competitors. Kansas leads the competition among all sports, 10-7.

AT&T USA Track & Field Championships Also This Weekend

Tiger post-collegians Christian Cantwell, Derrick Peterson, and Timothy Dunne, will be competing at the AT&T USATF Indoor Championships this weekend in Boston, Mass. The meet is also the final event in the VISA Indoor Championship Series.

The top two in each event will advance to the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Moscow, Russia, held in two weeks.

Cantwell will compete in the men's shot put, being only one four people in the World to throw over 21 meters this season (68-11). The World and American leader so far this season is Reese Hoffa, who's best throw of the season, 71-½ (21.65m) came at the Millrose Games In early February. Cantwell is the reigning World Indoor Champion, having won the Gold in Budapest in 2004. The men's shot is slated for Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

Peterson and Dunne will compete in the men's 800 meters. If they reach the final, it will be aired live on ESPN at 3:33 p.m., central, on Sunday as part of a two-hour broadcast that begins at 2:30 p.m., central.

For more info on the event, visit usatf.org.

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