Track and Field Sweeps Pole Vault at Big 12 Championships

Published by Texas SID on February 26th, 2016

Big 12 Championships: Homepage | Heat Sheets (coming soon) | Live Results | Live Video ($)
FloTrack Preview
USTFCCCA Conference Championship Central

AMES, Iowa – After the first day of action at the Big 12 Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships, the Texas Longhorns find themselves in a position to repeat as men's and women's champions. But it will be a very close fight on both sides to see which team is lucky enough to hoist the trophy on Saturday night as the Longhorns currently trail and have multiple rivals to battle with.

Texas sits in second place on the women's side with 41 points after six scored events. Texas Tech leads with 43. The remainder of the 19 events will be concluded on Saturday and Kansas State also is in the mix on the women's side similar to last year when the Longhorns had to hold off the Wildcats in the 4x400 meter relay to secure the victory.

For the Texas men, they stand in third place through five completed events with 34.5 points. Oklahoma State leads with 37 points and K-State is second with 35. Oklahoma is not far behind Texas in fourth in what could become a very tightly contested four-way race for the title.

"You're trying to advance as many as you can out of the preliminaries. From top to bottom it was just a great overall team performance," Head CoachMario Sategna said. "It's going to be a dogfight on the men's side. We knew Texas Tech was going to be tough. Oklahoma State has really stepped up. For the women, K-State has a lot of firepower. But that's what the conference meet is about. We're excited for the possibilities."

Senior Kaitlin Petrillose closed her Big 12 career in style as the best pole vaulter in Big 12 Conference history. She cleared a height of 4.41 meters (14-4.50) to break her own meet record set last year. It also is her seventh total Big 12 title combining indoors and out to become the most decorated women's pole vaulter in league history.

"Kaitlin Petrillose this is her last conference meet and this was her seventh Big 12 title," Sategna said. "That's phenomenal for somebody to win an event seven times indoors and out. I hope for her that she rides that momentum into the national championships."

Senior Reese Watson made it a clean sweep for the Longhorns in the pole vault winning the men's competition with a clearance of 5.34 meters (17-6.25) on his third attempt. He won the title based on misses on the previous height. Since he cleared all his other bars on first attempts, he was able to best Texas Tech's Kyle Thompson who had a miss at 5.19 meters.