April 15, 2010
NORMAL, Ill. -
After facing off against some of the best competition in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) last weekend, the Illinois State track and field teams will travel to Louisville, Ky., to face the nationally-ranked Louisville Cardinals and three other Midwest schools at the Lenny Lyles/Clark Wood Invitational Friday, April 16, at Cardinal Park.
The No. 14-ranked Louisville men and the No. 21-ranked women will compete against the Redbirds in the team-scored meet, along with regional Ohio State, Central Michigan and Ball State. The meet schedule has been changed due to inclement weather that is supposed to make its way through the Louisville area Friday afternoon. The running events have been moved up two hours, while the jumping events will start an hour earlier at noon CT.
"This meet is kind of unique because we normally don't compete at that early of a time on a Friday during the outdoor season," ISU track and field head coach Elvis Forde said. "However, many schools will be traveling to the Drake or Penn Relays next week and they need a bit of a rest so that's why a lot of schools have these one-day meets. The fun part of this meet is that if we were facing off against any one of these teams head-to-head, we would have our hands full. So, when you add in all of the teams it will make every point crucial throughout the day."
The Redbirds are coming off a weekend where several athletes stayed back in Normal and did not compete in order to recuperate and get healthy. However, the group that did go down to the Sea Ray Relays fared well against the skilled field in Knoxville, Tenn., and several set new season or personal-bests.
Women's throwers Brittany Smith and Tori Ziegler each performed well over the weekend, as Smith set a new personal-best in the shot put with a distance of 51'01.75" to finish in third place and Ziegler recorded a mark of 48'01.25" to secure a fifth-place finish. Ziegler just missed out on a personal-best effort in the in the open discus event with a mark of 152'01" to place first. That performance earned her a spot in Saturday's discus invitational, where Smith placed second with a distance of 163'06" and Ziegler was seventh with a throw of 155'09".
Leigh Petranoff and Tim Glover, who rank first and second in the Missouri Valley Conference in the javelin on the women's and men's sides respectively, continued to post consistent marks in the event during the outdoor season. Petranoff recorded a mark of 147'04" to place third overall in a tough field and Glover was fifth on the men's side with a distance of 224'04".
In action on the track, Steve Regan (3:55.88), Jon Roberts (3:56.03) and Blake Brooks (3:57.71) were second through fourth, respectively, in the 1,500-meter unseeded section and Scott Krapf just edged out Indiana State's Michael Disher in the 5,000-meter run to place third with a time of 14:27.06.
Live results live results of the meet and heat sheets for Friday's meet can be found on Louisville's official athletics website at www.uoflsports.com.
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