Jan. 15, 2010
Illinois State/Indiana State Dual Meet Program in PDF Format 
NORMAL, Ill. -
After a break for the holidays, the Illinois State track and field teams will return to action Saturday against Indiana State in its annual dual meet at Horton Field House. The meet will begin at noon with the men's weight throw followed closely by the start of the running events at 12:30 p.m., with the women's 60-meter hurdles.
The Redbirds officially opened the 2010 indoor season on Dec. 5, 2009, with the Early Bird Open on their home track. ISU dominated that event, with wins in 17 of the day's 28 events. Sophomore Kayode Adegoke and junior Meaka Brents were both dual winners at the Early Bird Open, with each taking home wins in the 60 and 200-meter dash, respectively. In addition, junior high jumper Drew Holl posted an NCAA-provisional qualifying mark in the meet to cap off a stellar day of competition for the Redbirds.
Likewise, the Sycamores opened their indoor season in December at Eastern Illinois. In that meet, three Sycamores posted an NCAA-provisional qualifying marks including junior Major Clay in the men's high jump, senior Kylie Hutson in the women's pole vault, and junior Kelsey Hanley in the women's weight throw.
Despite the team's initial success in December, this meet begins a stretch of five competitions that will prepare the Redbirds for the 2010 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships held Feb. 27-28 in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
"If we have the same type of performances from the first meet, I will be ecstatic but worried at the same time that we are peaking too early in the season," head coach Elvis Forde said. "I'm going to hope that our athletes will have a bit more motivation in this meet to perform well going against several all-Americans on the Indiana State roster and use that as a stepping stone for the rest of the season."
There will be some key matchups to watch throughout the day on the track and in the field. Adegoke will have stiff competition in both the 60 and 200-meter dash in the form of Indiana State's Daryl Truitt and Tra Wilson, who both head into the meet with fast seed times. In the high jump, Holl and Clay will look to improve on their initial provisional-qualifying jumps from December and move up in the national rankings.
On the women's side, freshman Hilary Hobler will have to improve on her winning jump of 17'03.25" at the Early Bird Open in the long jump and in the triple jump to compete with Sycamore standouts Lauren Martin and Erica Moore. In the sprint events, Brents and freshman Sade Sealy, who is coming off an impressive showing in the 400-meter dash in the season-opener, will have to fend off the Sycamore duo of Jasmyn Hudgins and Jaquelle Spencer.
"Our hope on Saturday is that we can continue to bond as a team and see how we match up against one of the better teams in our conference," Forde said. "I think we match up pretty evenly with Indiana State. We feel we are stronger in some areas than they are and they are stronger in other areas than we are. Overall, it brings that dimension of each point being crucial to the team's overall performance and it will be great to see where we stand."
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