Courtesy of MAC Sports Information Departments
Akron
AKRON, Ohio – The University of Akron track and field program will host its biggest home meet of the year, the annual Akron Invitational, over the next two weekends at Stile Athletics Field House.
The men's heptathlon, which will feature 15 competitors including Akron's John Dahlstrand, Bryan Jones and Alex McCune, will begin with the 60m at 5 p.m. Friday and continue with the long jump, shot put and high jump.
At the same time, the women's pentathlon, which will feature 11 competitors including Akron's Skyler Willis, will compete in the 60-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800-meters Friday, starting at 5:15 p.m.
The final three events of the men's heptathlon (60-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1,000-meters) will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday.
Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for youth (ages 3-14). UA students with valid ID will be admitted free of charge. All fans should enter through the UA student recreation center main entrance. Doors will open to the public one hour prior to the first event each day.
The Akron Invitational features some of the best collegiate and professional athletes in the country.
Bowling Green
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University track and field team will compete in a pair of meets this weekend with a trip to Findlay, Ohio for the Findlay Open on Fri., while current distance runner, Abby Koch will compete at the Meyo Invitational at Notre Dame.
Koch will compete in the 5,000 meters, which is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. on Fri. night inside the Loftus Sports Center. Koch has competed twice this season winning both events. She opened the year with a first-place finish in the 3,000 meters at the BGSU Opener with a time of 10:06.00. Two weeks later she won the 1-mile run at the Tom Wright Classic, finishing with a time of 5:11.68.
The remainder of the team will compete in the Findlay Open, with field events beginning at 1 p.m. and running events starting at 4:45 p.m. The entire meet schedule can be found below.
Buffalo
BUFFFALO, New York - The Bulls travel to the Penn State Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup this Saturday, February 4. At last year's meet, UB's women finished seventh of 12 squads and the UB men were ninth in an 11-team field. Besides the Bulls and homestanding Nittany Lions, other teams expected to compete include Cornell, East Tennessee State, Jacksonville, Princeton, Liberty, James Madison and North Carolina-Wilmington.
The University at Buffalo men's and women's track and field teams won seven events and scored 10 second-place finishes at the SPIRE Midwest Open which concluded Saturday. There was no team scoring at the meet.
As usual, UB's throwers scored high as the Bulls won all three throwing events in which they were entered. Becky O'Brien broke her own UB record to win the women's shot put. O'Brien threw 57-5.75 (17.52m) to eclipse the record she set last season by more than 16 inches, breaking the facility and Mid-American Conference marks as well and automatically qualifying her for the NCAA National Championships in Nampa, ID this March. The throw is also the third best in the nation this year. Kristy Woods was second nearly eight feet behind O'Brien with a throw of 49-8.50 (15.15m) while Rachel Roberts was fourth at 44-10.75 (13.68m). Woods won the women's weight throw, setting a season-best at 56-10.25 (17.33m) while Erin Miller placed second at 56-0 (17.07m), also a season-best mark. For the UB men, Rob Golabek remained undefeated this season in the shot put. Golabek won the competition with a throw of 63-1.50 (19.24m), just missing his UB and MAC records set two weeks ago by three-quarters of an inch. His throw was nearly six feet better than the second-place throw. Corey Knox finished third at 55-0.75 (16.78m).
Scoring women's wins on the track were Asia Henry in the 800-meters and Brooklynn Ventura in the 60-meter hurdles. Henry won the 800-meters in 2:09.69 with Meghan Manley placing third in 2:14.51 and Aimee Hopkins finishing fourth in a season-best 2:16.10. Ventura won the 60-meter hurdles in a season-best 8.64 and set a season-best in the 200-meters in 25.05, placing fifth. Henry's clocking in the 800-meters is the fastest this season and ninth in the country while Ventura's hurdles mark is tied for first in the MAC. Henry also helped the women's 4x400-meter relay team to a win in 3:46.18, cutting three seconds from the squad's previous best and posting the second-fastest time in school history. Henry was joined by Crystal Graham, Donna Jeanty and Jamiee McClary.
For the UB men's sprinters, sophomore Miles Lewis won the men's 60-meters in 6.83 seconds while Andre Britton was second in 6.96. Lewis placed second in the 200-meters with a season-best 21.77 while Britton also posted a season-best of 22.06 to take third.
Central Michigan
MOUNT PLEASANT – Fresh off a weekend in which two school records were broken, the indoor track and field teams will look to carry that momentum to Notre Dame for the Meyo Invitational, while a contingency of throwers will travel to the Findlay Open in Ohio, both of which begin Friday.
New 5,000m run school record holder and fifth-ranked sophomore Tecumseh Adams will be among a group of 25 student-athletes from the men's team and 19 from the women's team who will be competing at the Meyo Invitational. Field events and preliminary heats for sprints and hurdles begin at 5 p.m.
Most of the athletes competing at Notre Dame on both the men's and women's teams were last in action at the Jack Harvey and Red Simmons Invitationals, respectively, nearly two weeks ago.
Action at the Meyo Invitational will resume Saturday at 10 a.m. The remainder of the field events and unseeded sections of running events will take place throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. The finals and top-seeded sections of the running events will begin at approximately 2:40 p.m.
The list of competing teams will not be final until Thursday, but Notre Dame estimates between 60-80 schools will have student-athletes competing at the invite, including a number of Big Ten schools.
Senior thrower Kevin Mays headlines a group of three throwers at the Findlay Open. Mays, ranked 13th in NCAA Division I in the weight throw according to the Track and Field Results Reporting System, will be competing in an “Elite” invitation-only section of the event with nine other throwers who have recorded marks of 20m or farther. The “Elite” section begins at 7:30 p.m.
Senior Ryan McCullough, ranked 38th in Division I by TFRRS, and sophomore Calvin Jackson will be competing in the open section of the weight throw, which begins at 4 p.m.
Eastern Michigan (Women)
YPSILANTI, Mich. — The Eastern Michigan University women's track and field team travels to South Bend, Ind. Friday, Feb. 3, to compete in the Meyo Invitational. Action is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at the Loftus Center on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
Friday's action will start with the long jump and progress through multiple events, including the weight throw, pole vault, 60-meter hurdle, 60-meter dash, 5,000-meter run, the distance medley relay and 1,000-meter run. The 500-meter run will close out Friday's events.
The events will resume Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Loftus Center. At 10 a.m., the 3,000-meter run will start the day's action off. The 11-o'clock hour will provide most of Saturday's field events as triple jump, pole vault and shot put will take place at that time. The remainder of the track events will take place from 10:45 a.m. until the final event for the women at 4:40 p.m., which will be the 4x400-meter relay.
This year marks the sixth straight season that the Eagles have participated in the Meyo Invitational. In 2011, Ashlee Abraham took first in the 60-meter dash, while Shantavia Williams set a new Mid-American Conference standard in the unseeded 400-meter run with a time of 54.89 en route to a second place finish.
Eastern Michigan (Men)
YPSILANTI, Mich. — The Eastern Michigan University men's track and field team travels to South Bend, Ind. Friday, Feb. 3, to compete in the Meyo Invitational. Action is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at the Loftus Center on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
Friday's action will start with the long jump and progress through multiple events, including the weight throw, pole vault, 60-meter hurdle, 60-meter dash, 5,000-meter run, the distance medley relay and 1,000-meter run. The 500-meter run will close out Friday's events.
The events will resume Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Loftus Center. At 10 a.m., the 3,000-meter run will start the day's action off. The 11-o'clock hour will be highlighted by the shot put will take place at that time and the men's high jump and triple jump to take place at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. The remainder of the track events will take place from 10:45 a.m. until the final event for the men at 5:15 p.m., which will be the 4x400-meter relay.
"As always, we are looking forward to competing at Notre Dame," commented head coach John Goodridge. "The facility and competition are very condusive to good performances."
This year marks the sixth straight season that the Eagles have participated in the Meyo Invitational. In 2011, Austin Hendrix won the unseeded mile run while Terefe Ejigu and Cole Sanseverino posted the top two times in the MAC in the 3,000-meter run. Ejigu took first-place with his time of 8:08.58, while Sanseverino placed 10th with a time of 8:17.62.
Ohio
ATHENS, Ohio - Ohio Track and Field will compete this weekend in the 2012 version of the elite Meyo Invitational set to kickoff at 4 p.m. ET on Friday inside Notre Dame's Loftus Sports Center. The invitational, which is entering its 25th year of existence, welcomes teams and competitors from around the country.
Highlighting the meet is a pair of distance events that have become synonymous with the Meyo Invitational.
The Meyo Mile, which will be run at 3 p.m. on Saturday, boasts elite mile runners from around they country as they look to break the always impressive four-minute mark. In the past four years alone, 10 runners have broken the 4:00 barrier.
The brainchild of Piane, the Meyo Mile has been a highlight of the Meyo Invitational since 1988. The race, meet and track are named after Ray Meyo, who donated all of the money to build the track.
Friday's events kick off at 4 p.m. with the women's long jump, while Saturday's festivities begin at 10 a.m. with the women's unseeded 3,000m run. The elite events begin on Saturday with the women's and men's 60m hurdles finals at 2:40 p.m. and 2:50, respectively, and the Meyo Mile at 3 p.m.
For fans that can't make the event, live stats will be available. A link will be on UND.com just prior to the beginning of the meet. Flotrack will be covering the Meyo Invitational with videos available post-meet here.
Western Michigan
KALAMAZOO - For the third straight week the Western Michigan track and field team heads to the state of Indiana, this time the Broncos are set to compete at the prestigious Meyo Invitational at Notre Dame.
The Meyo pulls in elite talent and teams from all over the country with 48 teams scheduled to appear this weekend.
"People come from all over the country," said head coach Kelly Lycan. "They will have some of the best teams from all the top conferences competing there. It has a great reputation for running fast races."
After a solid performance at the Indiana Relays last weekend the Broncos have seen their profile rise, jumping four spots in the Great Lakes Regional rankings by the USTFCCCA to ninth. They are the top ranked Mid-American program in the region after moving ahead of Toledo. A big part of the jump was due to the stellar performance by Rachel Whitley last weekend. Whitley took first place in the 800 meter run, but also helped the distance medley relay team to the 20th fastest time in the country. Whitley's 800 time of 2:11.37 is currently the second fastest in the MAC.
"We are looking forward to getting some good improvements this week," said Lycan. "The last time we were at Notre Dame we turned in some very good times on the big 300 meter track. That track really benefits the middle-distance runners like Rachel, Aisha (Hodge) and Cara (Cremeans). They'll have plenty of space to run some good times.
Andrea Arnold and Iris Campbell both currently rank first and second in the 400 meter dash in the MAC. Arnold leads Campbell by just .03 seconds but both will get a crack at the 200 meter dash this weekend. Campbell already has the sixth best time in the league at 24.63 seconds but Arnold is looking to improve on her season's best of 24.99.
Amber Brunmeier currently leads the conference in the 5,000 meter run and will be running it again this weekend along with Teresa Marin. Marin has take huge chunks out of her personal bests this season in a few events, something that coach Lycan has been pleasantly surprised with.
"Teresa has made such amazing progress this year," added coach Lycan. "I think that is my most enjoyable part of coaching. To see people struggle then fight for a long period of time. Many people would just give up or not even try but her and Amber have both put in a lot of work and a lot of effort and it is gratifying to see those two reap the benefits of their hard work.
The Broncos jump from one elite meet to the next as next weekend members of the team will head down to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Tyson Invitational.