This weekend, two members of the ISU women’s track and field team will have the opportunity to make a dream become reality.

After years of work, the two Cyclones will be competing at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships with a chance to bring home the title of National Champion.

Both Christina Hillman and Ejiro Okoro competed for the Cyclones in the meet last season, and were named All-Americans in the shot put and 800-meter run event, respectively. Ejiro took home a seventh place finish, and Hillman was the runner-up.

This year, both athletes are gunning for the top spot on the podium.

Hillman comes into the meet as the No. 2 ranked athlete in the shot put event, and Okoro comes in as the No. 3 ranked athlete in the 800-meter event.

“It’s just a culmination of her hard work and her years of competing,” ISU assistant coach Andrea Grove-McDonough said of Okoro. “This year she was really able to put it all together and now it’s just clicking.”

While both come in to the meet highly ranked, they both say that the rankings go out the window once the competition begins.

“It’s really cool to be highly ranked, but at the same time anything can happen on the day and I’m just going to treat it like any other race, like just go out and just run,” Okoro said.

Hillman held the No. 1 ranking for much of the season, until Kearsten Peoples of Missouri was able to overtake the top spot at the SEC Conference Championships.

“I’m confident, but I also know that everyone in the field is capable of big throws,” Hillman said. “I have known all year that the field was wide open for NCAAs.”

Okoro will be running her final indoor event of her collegiate career, and the senior said going out on a high note is her main goal.

“Everyone wants to finish well, in anything it’s always about how you finish,” Okoro said. “ I just want to do the best I can and that’s what I’ve done throughout my college years.”

Grove-McDonough specifically works with the women’s middle and long distance athletes as part of ISU’s new coaching staff this season.

Grove-McDonough previously coached at Connecticut and said that Okoro was always slightly looked over on the national level.

“She’s always been a player; she’s just kind of been under the radar. I had a number of half-milers at NCAAs over the years at [Connecticut] and I never remembered or realized that [Okoro] was there also,” Grove-McDonough said. “This season people know who [Okoro] is; coaches at other schools are aware of the half-miler from Iowa State.”

Hillman is also well-known throughout the college track and field world after being the runner-up at last season’s NCAA Indoor Championship and holding the top throw in the nation for the majority of the season.

Both Hillman and Okoro have their sights set on bringing home an indoor national title and finishing the indoor season where they have found themselves so often throughout the course of the season: on the top of the podium.