This weekend will mark the seventh meet of the season for the women's track team and time is running out it to put together a collective team effort in time for the Mid-American Conference Championships.
Ball State will travel to Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday for the Drake Relays.
The field of individuals will include athletes from top programs in the nation including Nebraska (ranked 8th in nation), Stanford (12), Indiana (14), Northern Arizona (19) and Georgia, Rice and Akron who are all tied at 23.
The Cardinals will be sending eight athletes for individual events and three relay teams to the meet.
The athletes going to the Drake Relays include Jennifer Dennie (100-meter dash), Jill Scully (5000-meter run) and Aubrey Gaffer (10,000-meter run) in the running events.
Participating in field events will be Ashley Gillies (high jump), Christine Velgersdyk (high jump), Patricia Soman (long jump and triple jump), Kelly Kirby (heptathlon) and Jennifer McCoy (heptathlon).
The meet will be a non-scored meet meaning there will be no team scores with a focus on individual results rather than team.
BSU is coming off a performance at the Indy Relays hosted by Butler in which head coach Sue Parks was not particularly pleased with.
In a meet that featured three first place finishes, Parks was not satisfied with how the team did not have a team effort.
"We need more than one or two people performing well in order to succeed," she said. "We just haven't had a good team effort and time is running out."
After this weekend, the Cards will have only three remaining meets until the MAC Championships to take place May 30-31. Until then, BSU will focus on performing as a team so as to get prepared for the Championships.
The 2002 Drake Relays was the meet's 37th straight sellout when it sold out the 18,000 Drake Stadium. The streak is the longest in U.S. track history.
Ball State will also competing in this weekend's Boilermaker Open. That meet is Friday and Saturday in West Lafayette, Ind.
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