This weekend could quite possibly be the last competitive opportunity for the women"s track team before it heads to the Mid-American Conference Championship on May 13.
The team will utilize a split-squad; sending some to Indianapolis for the Butler Twilight and others to the Jesse Owens Invitational in Columbus, Ohio.
However, the following week the team will be busy with finals and most of the athletes will be unable to participate in the Billy Hayes Invitational in Bloomington May 7.
'I think it"s important for us to continue to improve and progress, but I don"t think we"re in any sort of panic situation with the MAC coming up,' head coach Sue Parks said.
The team will send only a limited number of athletes to Ohio, including sophomore Crystal Winfrey in the 400-meter dash, freshmen Christina Poulson in the 100 and 200 and Amanda Barnhart in the long jump and the 4x400 relay team.
The rest of the Cardinals will be participating in the Butler Twilight, held on the campus of IUPUI.
BSU struggled with competing strong throughout the whole meet at the Hillsdale Relays last weekend. The Cards did well on Friday but were unable to put up an equal performance Saturday.
'I think everybody recognizes that they need to keep their head in the game all the way through,' Parks said. 'Hopefully we can have a solid effort from beginning to end.'
Despite the lackluster day two, Ball State was able to qualify three more athletes for the NCAA regional, giving the Cards a total of five qualifiers.
Barnhart and teammate Jennifer McCoy took second and third in the long jump with marks of 20-1 and 19-11 3+â-Ü4, respectively. Both were good enough to qualify them for the NCAA regional.
Meanwhile, freshman Rose Lehe"s second-place time of 10:51.06 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase qualified her as well.
The type of competition this weekend may be a little different than what the team saw at Hillsdale, though.
'Butler is typically a really good meet for the distances and the throws and the Jesse Owens will be strong in the sprints,' Parks said. 'Hopefully we"ll get what we need to get out of these meets and really get our momentum going heading into the MAC.'
The nonscored Butler Twilight is set to take place Friday and Saturday in Indianapolis and the Jesse Owens Invite will be Saturday.
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