May 7, 2009
NORMAL, Ill. -
To close out the regular season, Illinois State will travel to the Billy Hayes Invitational Friday, May 8 in Bloomington, Ind. The annual meet, hosted by Indiana, will play host to more than 600 athletes and 21 teams. The meet is the final tune-up for the Redbirds before the championship season begins with the Missouri Valley Conference Championships May 15-17. Track and field events both start at 2 p.m. CDT.
Illinois State head coach Elvis Forde will take his track and field student-athletes over to fine tune the skills they have been working on over the past couple of months.
"We are going to take the individuals who have been hurt or just need a extra race," said Forde. "We are taking about half of our men's and women's team, I think it is important to give these athletes an additional race before we head out to Indiana State next weekend. It is going to be important that the athletes have a good meet to reassure them that they are ready for the conference championships."
Meaka Brents, Alia McAfee, Tia Harvey and Brianna Officer will all race in the 200-meter dash as the women's sprinters look to take advantage of another weekend of competition. Harvey and Officer will also be competing in the 400-meter dash.
The men's sprinters will also send a large group to compete in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. Senior Jeremy Johnson will see his first race of the year in the short sprints, while Sam Watts, Kayode Adegoke and Chris Kirtz will also be racing in either the 100 or 200.
Last weekend at the Pacesetter Invitational, the women's throwers dominated the field with three first-place finishes, with Samantha Springer in the discus, Tori Ziegler in the shot put and Leigh Petranoff in the javelin. The trio will look to improve upon their season- and personal-best marks this weekend.
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