Marquette University Athletics
In The Fast Lane
2/24/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Indoor Track
Feb. 24, 2000
Once a week, sophomore Brian Hardin will share his thoughts on the men's track 2000 season. Here is this week's entry:
Well, this is the big one! Our indoor season culminates this weekend with the Conference USA meet in suburban Chicago. The meet is on Saturday and Sunday and is hosted by DePaul University. We have an easy week of practice in preparation for the most important indoor meet of the season, and the team is confident that we'll go down there and surprise a lot of people. Last weekend we competed at UW-Oshkosh against a bunch of other Division III teams from Wisconsin. We trained through the meet and had guys enter events that they will not run this weekend. We still performed well in a meet that could have been a letdown-meet following our previous three meets and coming right before the main event. Good performances were turned in by Nick Newton in the long jump and Matt Dunlavy and jeremy Sullivan in the mile. Nick and Matt were both champions and Jeremy was a close second to Matt.
The conference meet this weekend will be a great meet. The competition over the past five years in Conference USA has increased exponentially and its only going to get better in two years when national power Texas Christian and East carolina join. We know that we don't have a very good shot at winning the team title, but there are some events where we could have a conference winner and a number of events where we can place in the top three. After having dinner last night at Coach Hoskisson's home, the sprint crew is now confident that if we perform like we are capable, we can come away with a team finish as high as third. A third place finish would be a terrific accomplishment considering that we are one of two teams at this meet that doesn't have the ability to pull sprinters away from the football team.
We have prepared a line-up that should enable us to score some points and have a lot of people place high in their events. Greg Uher is coming into this meet as the top shot-putter in the conference, and Dunlavy has the pole position in the 5,000 meters. Ken Mueller is seeded second in the 800 and also is a member of the third seeded 4x400 team. Heath Roussel is ranked third in the weight throw, while Joe Herington also is the third seed in his event, the 3,000 meters.
As for me, I'm going to try to pull off the double, running the 200 and the 400. I'm also going to run on the 4x400 relay, but most of my attention on Saturday will fall to the prelims of the 200 and the 400. I'm seeded sixth in the 400 and fourth in the 200 and hope to make it to the finals of each. The problem that I face is that the prelims of those events are back-to-back, so I'll have approximately 20 minutes to recover from the 400 before the 200. They'll take the top nine times to finals in each, and I would like to be there and have some company from Marek Krawcyzk and Brian Olsson in the 400 finals. Last year, I placed sixth at the indoor meet in the 400 and just missed making the finals of the 200, finishing 10th. Hopefully, I can improve on each of those. Points are given out to the top eight in each event, and the top three receive medals. It would be nice to return with at least one medal from this weekend, whether from the relay or an individual event.
The meet begins Saturday evening with the field events starting at 4:30 (CT) and running events starting at 5:30. On Sunday, the field events begin at 10 and the running goes at noon. This is truly the biggest indoor meet of the season for us. Since it is down in Chicago, I would love to see as many Golden Eagles fans as possible. For any more information about the meet, the Conference USA website has all the exact times, heat sheets and event leaders. They will post the results from competition on their website (www.c-usa.org) after the conclusion of each day's events. Just click on the track and field icon and follow the instructions to get to the indoor track page, and then to the rankings page. Again, it would be wonderful to see many Marquette supporters in the stands this weekend cheering on the Bluer and Gold. Until then, GO MU!!!
Brian Hardin (Class of 2002)
