Feb. 1, 2006
NORMAL, Ill. -
Over 1,000 athletes will be traveling to Indiana Friday and Saturday, February 3-4, to compete in the Hoosier Relays held at Gladstein Fieldhouse. Illinois State track and field athletes will be among those 1,000 athletes competing in the meet this weekend.
One of the larger meets that the `Birds will compete in during the indoor season, will not be the only difference from the past meets. Head coach Elvis Forde believes that the banked track at Indiana could have a very positive effect or a negative effect on his athletes.
Events will begin Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. and will continue on Saturday at noon.
"The big difference in this meet is that none of our athletes have run on a banked track," said Forde. "This is something that is totally new. Hopefully they can get a feel for it rather quickly and benefit them in terms of seeing some good performances. I'm going to hope that we adapt rather quickly and post some good times this weekend."
Coming on strong this season after battling injury and illness in 2004-05, Jeremy Doherty will compete in the invitation mile.
"Jeremy will be in a special race this weekend," said Forde. "He has been asked to compete in the invitation mile, which is an honor for him. I hope he will be able to go out and match the other guys skills and show that he is back, running well and going to make an impact in the conference."
The Redbirds have been resting up this week, keeping the workouts light, after a hard work out on Monday to get ready for the meet this weekend. Forde is anticipating Devon Williams, Lian Lucas, Kyndra Curtin, Anna Lovell and the rest of the women's sprints squad to come through and do well. Andrea Mosher will up move from her main event, the 400-meters, to compete in the 800-meter run. Suzy Turner is also expected to build off her mile performance in Wisconsin, while Brittney Hourd and Frannie Epps will be entered in several events to prepare for the pentathlon at the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor championships.
On the men's side, Jeremy Johnson will drop back to the 60 and the 200-meters, although, he clocked in with the fastest time of any Redbird this season in the 400-meters at Wisconsin. Slowed up by a calf injury last weekend, Bronco Meeks will look to get back to his winning ways and Forde believes Geoff Houtman will have a chance to step up this weekend in the distance events. Forde anticipates thrower Mark Jackson, who has performed consistently well for the `Birds this season, to continue to perform at a high level.
"All of the athletes are running and performing in their individual events really well right now, both on the men's and women's team," said Forde. "What they do this weekend will be no surprise to me. I'm just going to hope that we maintain our good health and perform well."
