When the Illinois State track and field team travels to Carbondale for the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships, it wont be just another meet.
The MVC Championships, which begin Friday and conclude Saturday, is what the coaches and athletes prepare for all season. Its the meet that makes or breaks a season and shows what progress the team has made since December.
The Northern Iowa men and Southwest Missouri State women are the defending champions and both our favored to win again this season according to a poll conducted by MVC coaches.
This is going to be a very interesting championship, Illinois State head coach Elvis Forde said. The Northern Iowa men outweigh everyone else in depth from top to bottom. This competition is going to be a challenge.
A year ago, the mens squad came within nine points of beating Northern Iowa. Rhett Hillard, who recently took home MVC Field Athlete and Prairie Farms/MVC Scholar Athlete of the Week honors, is the leading candidate to take home the shot put title. Hillard holds the best mark in the Valley this season at 58-6.
In the mile, Dan Tripp and Jeremy Doherty achieved the top two spots last season, finishing with times of 4:09.74 and 4:11.30 respectively. Tripp currently holds the top mile time in the conference this season at 4:06.09. In addition to winning the mile, Tripp teamed up with current Redbird Bronco Meeks and former Redbirds Gabe Cruz and Pierre Woods to win the distance medley relay last season. Meeks, Doherty, Geoff Houtman and DeAndre Tillman teamed up at Iowa State two weeks ago and achieved the second fastest time in the Valley this season at 9:58.43.
On the womens side, junior newcomer Lyn Cox was a mid-year transfer to the program and immediately made her way to the top of the Valley best list in the 60-meter dash, achieving a time of 7.55 on Feb. 5. Cox owns the fifth best time in the 200-meter dash (24.94), while Andrea Mosher holds the third best spot in the 400 (55.30).
The 4x400-meter relay team of Cherise Devers, Lindsey Arnold, Mosher and Lian Lucas achieved a school record time of 3:45.58 at Iowa State, which is the third fastest time in the Valley this season. In the multi-events, Brittney Hourd is expected to compete in the pentathlon on Friday morning after competing in various sprinting and field events throughout the indoor season.
In the distance events, Laura Kennedy and Betsy McDonald are the favorites to score points for the Redbirds this weekend. Kennedy owns the third best time in the mile at 4:54.03, while McDonald is fifth at 5:00.03.
Weve gotten a lot of quality performances in many events, but were still lacking in depth in many other areas, Forde said. If we finish in the top three in our strong events, that will help our cause. But in terms of not picking up points in certain events where we have no one competing, that is going to hurt us.
What we accomplished on the Valley best list is history and we can only hope that the history is a good indication that we can continue to perform at a high level.
