This weekend, the Ball State men's track team travels to Oxford, Ohio, for the Miami Invitational, but it's not this trip to Oxford that the team is focused so much as its return in just over one month.
The Miami RedHawks were chosen as host to the Mid-American Conference Championships May 13-15 due to delays in the construction of Western Michigan's facilities.
"I think Miami is a good place to compete and that being the place where conference is, we need to leave this meet with our confidence pretty high since we're going to be back there," BSU head coach Jermaine Jones said. "We need to leave there feeling good about what we've done and feeling good about the track. That is probably the biggest key."
Much of Miami's strength lies in the distance events, which could present a problem for Ball State as Jones has made the decision to rest the team's top distance runners in Aaron Hoover, Sal Impelliterri and Stephen Cohen.
"The only area where we're switching a few people out is in distance, and that's OK because in distance running you have to take breaks," Jones said. "They have to take their breaks because we're looking further down the line."
The Cardinals are coming off a somewhat upsetting performance at the Notre Dame Open Saturday. Despite the four first-place finishes, Jones was not entirely pleased.
"Notre Dame didn't go as we would have liked. The weather wasn't conducive to what we wanted to get done, so we didn't have the times we were looking for," Jones said. "It ended up being a training event, but we didn't want it to be."
The team will utilize the extra block of training as they travel to Oxford, Ohio, for the Miami Invitational Saturday, set to begin at 9 a.m.
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