Team struggles at Big Tens, places 9th

After one day of competition at the men's Big Ten Indoor Track Championship, things didn't look good for the Hoosiers.\nThe only points came from junior Dino Efthimiou's third-place finish with a personal best in the pole vault and the distance medley relay's seventh-place finish.\nIU sat in last place after the first day, but the second day looked promising with potential for high points and a high finish since No. 3 Penn State was in only seventh place with 15 points.\nThe Hoosiers hoped to rely on their young, eager athletes to rack up some major points on Sunday.\nFive Hoosiers qualified for the finals for Sunday's competition, but the Hoosiers were just not deep enough to make noise in University Park, Penn., and finished ninth with 44 points.\nWisconsin continued its dominance from day one and successfully defended its conference title from last year with a total of 114 points. Purdue (94 points), Ohio State (86), Minnesota (83) and Penn State (68) rounded out the top five.\nAlthough the Hoosiers did not place as well as they hoped, positive signs emerged from the meet in regards to the future of IU track. \nSophomore Hasaan Reddick was sidelined most of the season because of an illness, but he came back stronger than ever and finished second in the triple jump and took over the fifth spot on the IU records list.\nFreshmen Contrell Ash and Rodney Hollis also provided sparks for the sprinters. Ash claimed fifth place in the 60-meter dash and now owns the IU record in the 200-meter dash, in which he placed third. Hollis stormed past his personal best by four seconds and unexpectedly shattered the school record in the 600 meters.\nSophomore Matt Harris continued to break his own school record in the 60-meter hurdles, breaking the eight-second mark en route to a fourth-place finish.\nJunior Kevin Chandler and freshman Ryan Sarbinoff earned sixth place in the mile and seventh place in the 400 meters, respectively.\nBut the star of the meet was Ohio State senior Andrew Pierce, who broke the meet record in the 400 meters and became the Big Ten champion in both the 200 and 400 meters.\nPurdue coach Mike Poehlein was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.