With the MAC Outdoor Track and Field championships looming, time is precious for the Ball State University track and field team. The Cardinals hope to carry their four first-place performance last weekend to the Pacesetter Invitational on the campus of Indiana State University today.
In last week's practices, coach Randy Heisler had his runners and throwers focus on one event instead of multiple. That approach resulted in positive results at the Stan Lyons Invitational in Indianapolis, including several lifetime bests. When Ball State travels to Terre Haute, it will be more of the same — shifting all focus to one event.
Heisler said he was pleased with how things panned out for the girls with the single-event approach. However, it was not because of four first-place finishes at IUPUI. He gave high praise for those that did not even win their event last week.
Sophomore sprinter Renyae Owsley and freshman sprinter Judah Smith dropped nearly two seconds from what they've been doing early in the year in the 400-meter dash. Heisler said they started from being 10th to 12th in the conference to being only half a second away from being in the top three.
Despite the outstanding efforts, Heisler still believes that they could do better.
"Depth-wise, from event to event, we're not a bad team," he said. "We have all the things to make it happen, but we need to be smarter with our training next fall."
With two weeks remaining, the team knows that these meets hold a lot of value.
"We're trying to get as high as we can on the depth chart [for the MACs]," Heisler said.
The Pacesetter Invitational is a non-scored meet and will begin today at 9 a.m. with the women's hammer throw.
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