Teams split up for meets

The men's and women's track and field teams have a busy weekend. While the sprinters, throwers and jumpers head to the sunshine state for the Florida Relays, the distance runners are going in different directions. The men's distance runners will participate in a meet in California, and the women's distance runners head upstate to the Purdue Invitational.\nThe competition at these sites is expected to be tough. In Florida, several Big Ten teams, including Illinois, Ohio State and Wisconsin, will compete, as will some of the best athletes from the South Eastern Conference. \nThe women's track and field team finished second in the NCAA Indoor Championships. The IU women finished eighth overall. This meet is similar to the Baldy Castillo Invitational, as it will not be scored. \nBut much can be gained from the meet, scoring or not.\n"We need to learn how to compete against people who are better than us," men's coach Marshall Goss said, "and we have to learn how to come from behind on our jumps and our throws."\nAt the Stanford Invitational, four athletes will compete for the IU men's track team. IU planned to send more distance runners, but the athletes had to withdraw because of illness. Junior Jeff Zeha, sophomores Tom Burns and Bart Phariss and freshman John Jefferson are competing for IU. \nThese athletes face fierce competition, possibly the best opponents until the NCAA championships. Not only will the meet feature many of the top collegiate athletes, it will also have a few professional runners. With so much talent in the races, there is bound to be several athletes earning national qualifying marks. \n"It is hard telling," junior Chad Andrews said. "If the conditions are right, they will be able to pop a good one."\nThe women are taking several athletes to the meet, including junior Rachelle Boone and Danielle Carruthers, seniors Heather Colyer and Tia Trent and freshman Charlene Maddux. \nCarruthers is coming off an indoor season in which she was named Big Ten Indoor Athlete of the Year and had an outstanding meet at Arizona State. Her performance was so good that she was named Big Ten Outdoor Athlete of the Week. This is the beginning of the outdoor season, so performances like that should not be expected every week. \n"We are taking kids who can benefit from the weather and good competition," women's coach Randy Heisler said. "It is a long season, and we have just started training so you should keep that in mind"