TRACK: Short-handed Cardinals to run in Louisville
Several weeks into its training phases, the Ball State University track and field team will enter the weekend short-handed.
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Several weeks into its training phases, the Ball State University track and field team will enter the weekend short-handed.
Last week, unforgiving weather at Purdue kept the Ball State University track and field team from completing all events. It was a complete reversal of conditions in Oxford, Ohio on Saturday.
The Ball State University women's track and field teams did not have a whole lot to show for itself after last weekend's meet on the Purdue University campus.Inclement weather kept Ball State from competing in many events at the Mike Poehlein Invitational at Purdue last weekend. This week, the team has trained in contrasting climates. Regardless of what Mother Nature has on its agenda this weekend, coach Randy Heisler said he is excited to make the trip to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.The 25th annual Miami Invitational will field 18 teams and will be the first scored meet of the outdoor season for Ball State."I'm really looking forward to going over there," Heisler said. "This year, I think it'd be good for our team to go in there and do very well."Heisler said he hopes to see good performances that are not affected by unfavorable weather. He said junior Thekla Lorenz came out and threw the shot very well at Purdue, even though the weather was atrocious. He also said that senior sprinter Katie Johnson looked a little hesitant in her first outdoor meet but that was expected.For redshirt freshman thrower Elizabeth Flinner, the competition and weather ahead should be no matter. She said she and the rest of the team should be prepared for this weekend's meet."It's been a good week [at practice], getting our throws in and being in the weight room," Flinner said. "I think we're all ready to compete."The latest forecast from the National Weather Service calls for partly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-50s today and sunny skies with highs in the upper 60s for Saturday afternoon.The first event begins at 3:30 p.m. with the hammer throw. It is the lone event of the day, and the meet will resume at 11 a.m. Saturday with the discus throw.
The Ball State University track and field team finished all events that mother nature allowed it to at Dave Rankin Track on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., on Saturday evening. With the weather being dismal, five different Cardinal athletes had top-10 finishes.
After a solid performance at last week's Polar Bear Invitational at Indiana Wesleyan University, the Ball State University track and field team is looking to improve itself going into this weekend's meet at Purdue University.It is early in the outdoor season, however coach Randy Heisler is making moves that will make the team's identity clearer. Heisler said he plans to redshirt several freshman, giving them another year to mature."We're just trying to put all the pieces together so that by the conference meet, we should be in position to score," Heisler said. "We should not be shocked about scoring some points, either."The team expects RaJae Marable to return this weekend, running in the 100 meter dash. Heisler says he expects freshmen Erica Campbell and Sharise Logwood to return next weekend.Heisler also said that the team continues to practice in an intense training mode, and that the team is in good shape for training. "We are running 4000 to 6000 meters every day," Heisler said. "Hopefully, that will pay off six weeks from now [for the conference meet]."With the team training in high intensity, Heisler says he still expects everyone to do their best and achieve personal records.Senior thrower Tyra Schantz believes that everyone is doing their part and is on schedule in terms of preparation."I think everybody is feeling a lot more confident than at the beginning of the indoor season," Schantz said. "Everybody is giving their ‘A' effort right now as far as training goes. Right now, we are where we need to be."The Mike Poehlein Invitational will mostly field teams from the Division-I level. As similar to the Polar Bear Invite, the meet is non-scored.The 10-team meet will begin Friday night with one event, the hammer throw, to kick off the meet. The remainder of the events will begin Saturday morning at 10 a.m. with the discus throw.
The Ball State University track and field teams opened their outdoor campaigns Saturday afternoon at the Polar Bear Invitational on the Indiana Wesleyan University campus. The Cardinals posted four first-place finishes in the non-team-scoring event.
The Ball State University track and field team opens its outdoor season this weekend as it participates in the Polar Bear Invitational on the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University.
Last week, Ball State University track and field coach Randy Heisler said he did not imagine his team would fare very well in the Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships. He was not too far off the mark.
Through day one of the Mid-American Conference indoor track and field championships in Mount Pleasant, Mich., Ball State University finds itself in a tough spot.
After finishing second in last week's Ball State University Quadrangular, the women's indoor track team will face tougher competition when they arrive on the campus of Central Michigan University for the Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships, beginning today in Mount Pleasant, Mich.With that in mind, coach Randy Heisler does not expect his team to be at the top of the leaderboard. "We just do not have the performers in enough events that will allow us to score enough points to win this meet," he said.Heisler also said that he needed to alter his approach to this particular meet after recounting his prior years as coach for Ball State. "My first three years here, I went in to this meet with expectations that our kids could perform and that we have a chance to win this meet," Heisler said. "Every time I put that out there to them, they fall apart."His new approach is more simplistic: no pressure.Senior distance runner Vanessa Gilbert said she has some mixed feelings going into the meet. "This will be my last 3k race ever," Gilbert said. "I want to get as many points for my team as much as possible."With this year being her last as an indoor competitor, Gilbert feels as though she is taking a great deal of responsibility. While she is only one of three distance runners in this year's indoor crew, she still wants to have a strong finish going into the outdoor season. She is currently 13th in the MAC in the 5k (17:52.50) as well as 14th in the mile run (5:00.69).The Cardinals will also look to get points from junior Ra'Jae Marable and senior Katie Johnson. Marable is the No. 2 seed in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.55, while Johnson is third with a time of 8.56. Sophomore Janae Taylor is the No. 12 seed in both the 60-meter (7.69) and the 200-meter dash (25.08).Junior Thekla Lorenz also has an opportunity to score several points for Ball State. Lorenz is the No. 2 seed in the long jump (6.01m), No. 7 in the pentathlon (3,614 pts.) and No. 15 in the high jump (1.65m).If Ball State's top performers fail to score at the MAC Indoor Championships, Heisler says that it is something for the whole team to figure out where they went wrong. Luckily for the Cardinals, there is the outdoor track and field season for the women to improve themselves. "We have the spring to regroup, get healthy and go at it," Heisler said.The two-day event at the Jack Skoog Indoor Track begins today at 10 a.m. with the pentathlon. Field events will start at 2 p.m. while track events will follow around 3:10 p.m.
The Ball State University indoor track and field team displayed one of its best performances of the year Friday night, as it came away with 123.5 points, good enough for a second place finish in its own Ball State Quadrangular at the Field Sports Building.
The Ball State University indoor track team wants to showcase exactly what it is capable of in its only home meet of the season. The Cardinals will get just that opportunity tonight when they play host to the 2010 Quadrangular at the Field Sports Building.
The Ball State University track team came away from Friday's Hoosier Hills Invitational in Bloomington with 13 top-10s to its credit.
For the second time in a month, Ball State University will head to Harry Gladstein Fieldhouse at Indiana University for an indoor meet.
The Ball State track team looks to continue its dominating ways from the last two weekends when it travels to South Bend today for the Meyo Invitational, hosted by the University of Notre Dame.The two-day event begins at 5 p.m. with the long jump. Seven running events will follow to complete tonight's action, concluding with the 500-meter run.The Cardinals had eight first-place performances in last week's Indiana Wesleyan Invitational, and they hope to continue that trend today. Three of those first places came from sophomore Janae Taylor, who won the 60-meter dash, the 200-meter dash and was the anchor leg in Ball State's 4x200 meter relay team.After tonight's action, Ball State returns to the track tomorrow for 18 more races split up into morning and afternoon sessions.
The Ball State University track team completed the first day of the Meyo Invitational hosted by the University of Notre Dame on Friday.
The Ball State University women's track team came into Saturday's meet at Bowling Green State University with high hopes. But it left with a mediocre result, finishing in sixth place out of a 10-team field and fifth out of the six Mid-American Conference teams.
On paper, the Ball State University women's track and field team can appear top heavy.Entering Saturday's meet at Bowling Green State University, it returns some talented upperclassmen, such as All-Mid-American Conference honorees Ali Bishel, Brittany Ade and Katie Johnson.But on the other side of the spectrum, there are 17 freshman out of the 41 athletes on the roster, making it a youth-driven team.Coach Randy Heisler said that fact does not intimidate him."I feel really good about the freshman class," Heisler said. "They all have a really good attitude, they work hard and I think they'll do well from here on out."Junior Ra'Jae Marable, a 60-meter hurdles champion in the 2008 MAC Indoor Championships, agrees with her coach."I think the freshmen might feel a little bit of pressure to go out and do well," Marable said. "But I think they're also eager to just go out and show what they're capable of."Heisler said the young additions to an already accomplished group of returning athletes should help the team vie for a conference championship. The members of the team are setting their goals just as high for the season.For Marable, that means improving on any previous success."I just hope to get off to a really good start, hopefully getting no new injuries along the way, and repeating everything I accomplished in the past few years," she said.Sophomore distance runner Christine Talhelm said the whole team expects to improve both in their personal and team records."Individually, I want to place in conference in indoor and outdoor in the 800 [meters], and to improve on my times from last year," Talhelm said. "And obviously, the whole team wants to win the MAC."Even though a first meet could always cause some nervousness in any athlete, Talhelm doesn't think that will be a problem with the team, including the freshmen, come this Saturday."Everyone should just be excited to go out and make their performance count," Talhelm said. "And to show that they'll be able to contribute to a winning team."Ball State will be competing on Saturday against five other MAC schools in Bowling Green, Ohio University, Eastern Michigan University, Miami University and the University of Toledo. The non-conference schools participating will be the University of Cincinnati, Oakland University and IPFW.
When senior Sarah Kehe walked into morning swim practice Monday, she was greeted by her teammates like a long lost friend.When the women's swimming and diving team began practicing the second week of the semester, they started without Kehe.The senior missed preseason training because she was preparing for the cross country season. In all, Kehe participates in three sports: cross country, swimming and track."It's pretty challenging, but I've never known anything else," Kehe said. "I've done three sports since high school, so basically, I just take one season at a time."On top of her duties to these three sports, she also volunteers her time at Elmcroft, an assisted living home and sings in a local church choir, all while maintaining a 3.8 grade point average."A lot of times she'll run in the house, change clothes, grab something to eat and she's off to choir practice," Kehe's roommate and swimming teammate senior Kaitlin Jasmon said. "She is extremely busy and yet, she's always there."Some might wonder how Kehe has enough time in the day to do all of these things and still sleep. There are times when Kehe does not know how she does it either."I'm pretty sure I'm as close to crazy as you can get without being medically defined as such," Kehe said.While juggling all of these activities, Kehe has still found a way to excel. In 2008, she was a member of the record setting 800-yard freestyle relay team and has consistently been the number two runner on the cross country team this season.Today, most Division I athletes are told to specialize in a single sport so they can reach their full potential in that sport. Kehe's coaches have tried to convince her to drop a sport and specialize, but it has fallen on deaf ears."I've talked to her and asked her if she would consider taking a year to just focus on this or that," cross country and track coach Randy Heisler said. "She just gave me this look like I'm crazy and said, ‘I can't not swim. I can't not run; I have to do all of it.'"In order for Kehe to be able to compete in all three sports, some concessions had to be made by everyone. Heisler lost Kehe after Saturday's Mid-American Conference Championship and won't see her again until after the swimming and diving MAC Championship in February, causing her to miss the entire indoor track season, but gets her back in time for the start of the outdoor season. Women's swimming and diving coach Laura Seibold-Caudill did not have Kehe for the preseason training, which started earlier this semester. Men's swimming and diving coach Bob Thomas coached Kehe for three years in swimming and said that missing the preseason training has hindered her performance."I'd really like to have the opportunity to coach her for an entire season and see how much better she is," Thomas said. "It's one of those gut feelings you have that she'd be better if she could just swim for two more months. I'd like to see her swim year round. That would make a major difference."Despite the desires of her coaches to pick a sport, Kehe stands firm in doing all three."I can't give either of them up," Kehe said. "I love them both so much. Running and swimming have become a huge part of who I am, and I just can't give them up."Despite not spending the entire year with her teams, Kehe is still a vital part of each. Both Heisler and Seibold-Caudill said she brings a high level of excitement and leadership with her when she is with their respective teams."She's a great team player and definitely a major part of the team, and I know swimming feels the exact same way," Heisler said. Seibold-Caudill said from the moment Kehe walks onto the deck of Lewellen Pool, her personality allows her to step right back into her role as a leader on the team as though she has not been gone for months."I think she's a great leader for the senior class," Seibold-Caudill said. "I wish we had Sarah all season. She's a great role model for all the underclassmen. She's certainly a joy to have, a joy to coach and a great teammate."Jasmon has lived with Kehe for the past three years and said that even with her absence, Kehe brings leadership to the swimming and diving team."If you know Sarah Kehe, she has a very outgoing personality; she's very welcoming to other people," Jasmon said. "She's very easy to get to know. I think because of her personality, it makes it easier to adjust and for other people to adjust to what she's doing."All of the practices, volunteering and schoolwork does wear on Kehe. The hardest times for her are the first few weeks after she transitions into a new sport. Kehe said that it's not that she isn't in shape, but her body isn't in shape for that particular sport. Kehe said those weeks are when she relies heavily on her roommates and close friends to help keep her encouraged."Those are the weeks where every practice hurts and that's when it's a good thing that I live with people who obviously care about me and say, ‘You're fine. You can do this. You've done it before, its not big deal,'" Kehe said. "It's a big support system. My roommates all have boyfriends, so I have this huge support network of basically seven roommates, two teams and a couple handfuls of coaches to help me out."The support system isn't just for Kehe. When Jasmon was forced to go home over Winter Break in 2007 to have open-heart surgery, she missed a number of team-bonding activities. Jasmon said Kehe made a gingerbread cookie that she decorated to look like Jasmon and carried it around to all of the functions and took more than 200 pictures, put them on Facebook and tagged Jasmon in them so she could feel included and know that her team was thinking of her."I have about 200 pictures on Facebook and I'm not in any of them, but my cookie is," Jasmon said. "It's just those kinds of things that she does for people to make them feel included. No, I wasn't there but my cookie was everywhere. My cookie was a lot of places I probably wouldn't have been if I had actually been there."Heisler said that Kehe is an advocate for those less fortunate than her, which stems to her love of volunteering at Elmcroft."I love working with the elderly," Kehe said. "I have a gerontology minor, so I hang out at Elmcroft Assisted Living. I wouldn't even call it work, it's so much fun, I just consider it me hanging out with the residences there."After graduation, there isn't a lot of question about what Kehe hopes she will be able to do: triathlons. Kehe said she has the first and last legs of the triathlon down pretty well, but she has to improve on her biking.Kehe entered her first triathlon two summers ago at the Muncie Endurathon. She finished second to a professional triathlete in the event."I don't think I could have won because my transitions were slow because I'm not very experienced at triathlons, and I wanted to be comfortable," Kehe said. "If I'm going to run for an hour and a half or bike for three hours, I'm not going to rush getting ready for that. I don't want blisters or any of that."After her success in the Muncie Endurathon, Kehe said that becoming a triathlete is something she is definitely considering, if she can find sponsorship to do it. Whether she is sponsored or not, Kehe has a goal to complete two Ironman competitions by the time she is 40. She wants to complete two, she said, because anyone can do one and then quit, but it takes a true athlete to complete one and then begin to train for another.All three of her coaches, Heisler, Seibold-Caudill and Thomas, said they think she has definite potential as a triathlete."I've told her that I can see her five years down the road in Hawaii [where the Ironman championship is held] wearing next to nothing with numbers painted all over climbing out of the water and just loving every second of it," Heisler said.
The last grain of sand in the hourglass will fall this weekend for the Ball State University track and field team to qualify for the NCAA provisionals.Before time runs out, the Cardinals will travel to South Bend for the Alex Wilson Invitational for their last attempt to make time requirements for the 2009 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in College Station, Texas."There are four total competitions nationwide that are giving track and field athletes one more opportunity," Ball State track and field coach Randy Heisler said. "It's going to be very businesslike atmosphere. You could get a personal best at this meet but if you don't qualify it really doesn't matter." The previous performance in which the Cardinals competed was this past weekend at the Mid-American Conference Championships. Ball State and Miami University tied with a tally of 73 points for third place. "Typically, I'm not a big fan of last-chance qualifying meets," Heisler said. "The girls are peaked out from the conference championships. If you haven't met the time requirements already, it's tough." Junior Ali Bishel was named the Women's Most Outstanding Track Performer and fifth-year senior Amber Williams was named the Most Valuable Performer at the conference meet. Bishel is projected to participate in the Alex Wilson Invitation for her final opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Championships. Williams is anticipated to not attend to better prepare herself for the championships in March. "Ali would have to drop a lot of seconds off her original time, but it can be done," Heisler said. Events begin at 5 p.m. Friday at the University of Notre Dame's Loftus Center and again at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.