Because it was a non-scored meet, women's track and field head coach Sue Parks placed the athletes in the Purdue Open last weekend where she thought would most benefit their training.
The premeditated move was all in preparation for the first scored meet of the indoor season this Friday at the Notre Dame Triangular. Ball State will face the host Irish and Mid-American Conference foe Western Michigan.
"Any time we run against a conference team, we want to try to beat them," Parks said. "We just want to compete really hard and try to do the best we can in a scored meet situation."
At the Purdue Open, sophomore Crystal Winfrey took first place in the 600-meter run with a time of 1:34.84. Sophomore Jill Scully won the mile run at 5:10.13, followed by freshman teammate Rose Lehe in second at 5:14.64.
"I hope to lower my time from last week and just to run stronger than I did," Lehe said. "I want to improve the last half of my race."
A strong performance by freshmen also highlighted the meet. Christina Poulson placed third in the 60-meter dash at 7.73. Behind Winfrey in the 600 were Alex Marshall and Amanda Ponsot. Marshall placed third with a time of 1:36.24 while Ponsot took fourth at 1:40.31.
"I think we'll make a lot of improvements from the first meet; this (Friday) will be a lot better," Parks said.
The Triangular will mark the first scored meet after losing two time NCAA All-American Patricia Soman. Soman, who graduated in 2003, holds school records in the 4x200, 4x400, 4x400, sprint medley relay, long jump and triple jump.
At the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships, she finished eighth in the long jump and triple jump, while finishing ninth in the triple jump at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
This is a web exclusive article that did not run in the print version of the Daily News.
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