Weekend goes well despite inclement weather

The men's and women's track and field teams completed the first of several big weekends to come in the next month. This weekend's meets were marred with such bad weather at West Lafayette that the Boilermaker Open was cancelled after only a few events. \nThis led to marks and times that were not as good as they could have been. Despite this, many athletes on the women's side and several on the men's track and field teams fought through the poor conditions to have good meets.\nThe Penn Relays saw the IU women put on an outstanding performance. In a meet where traditional powerhouses like Louisiana State University, Texas and South Carolina dominate, the Hoosiers shone. The team had several good individual and relay team performances. \nThe junior tandem of Rachelle Boone and Danielle Carruthers continued to make noise on the national level. Boone was able to take fourth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.60. That was her fourth best time of the season and second fastest of the weekend. \nIn the 100-meter hurdles, Carruthers not only posted a third NCAA automatic qualifying time but also took first place in the event. The time of 12.94 seconds ranks her second in the nation. In the 3000-meter steeplechase the Hoosiers also did well. Sophomore Audrey Giesler and freshman Jamie Higginbotham took 10th and 13th respectively in the new event. \nThe relay teams also had success. The distance medley team was the first team to do well with a sixth place finish. The 4x400-meter relay team also finished third in their heat. The 4x800-meter relay team also came in third out of 30 teams. \nThe big news came out of the short relay teams. Both the 4x200 and 4x100-meter relay teams had goals of making it into the Champions of America race. This race features the top eight fastest teams from the preliminaries in that event. The team was able to do that and more. Both relay teams finished third overall. They were pleased with their performance and with the entire team this weekend.\n"We all pulled together and did real well," Carruthers said. "Considering what we have done in the last two weeks we did real well."\nThe Drake Relays saw several good performances by the IU men, but it was not seen across the board. The distance runners had several good performances including junior Bart Phariss, who took second in the 10,000-meters with a time of 30:17. \nSenior Ryan Huber turned another of these performances in the 800-meters. He took a first place finish with a time of 1:51. In the triple jump the team continues to get consistent performances from freshman Aarik Wilson and junior Hasaan Reddick. The pair finished second and third respectively. \n"It was not so much the weather as the kids not being ready to run," he said. "I was pleased with some people but not the total team effort. We have to get better, get competitive, and get healthy"