Indoor season opens with win

The No. 16 men's track and field team opened the indoor season with a win Saturday at Michigan with a four-way track meet with No. 25 Michigan, Kent State and Michigan State. The Hoosiers scored 172 points leaving runner-up Michigan behind by 15 points.\nThe team came away with five first place finishes in the meet, two from sophomore Aarik Wilson. Wilson was victorious in the long jump and triple jump, exceeding the NCAA provisional standard in the triple jump. Also earning victories were junior Ryan Sarbinoff in the 400m with a time of 49.2, junior Contrell Ash in the 200m with a time of 22.11 and the 4x400m relay team with a time of 3:17.47. Ash also earned runner-up in the 60m with in 6.99.\n"We struggled in places, being our first meet out, and we have some places we need to correct and get better," coach Marshall Goss said. "We had some people who came on and did real well, but for the most part it was just kind of a typical meet for us. It's nothing to celebrate over but nothing to be disappointed with."\nOne of the athletes who Goss said stepped up for the team was sophomore Jake Wiseman. Earlier in the week freshman pole vaulter David Stead went out for the season with a broken arm, leaving the team with only one main pole vaulter for the indoor season. Wiseman, a multi-event athlete, responded to the injury by filling in and breaking his personal record in the event by almost two feet for a fourth place finish in the event.\n"It's just phenomenal how he did in the pole vault," fellow pole vaulter and junior Casey Friske said. "He's been working on the pole vault lately but not really that much. He was just really pumped up and ready to go."\nAlso putting out impressive performances were junior Mike Minton who placed second in both the shot put and weight throw and sophomore Eric Redman who finished fourth in the mile. Junior Russell Hollis finished a second ahead of his brother Rodney in the 600m as they placed second and third, respectively.\n"We're pretty much training as hard as we can right now so we can be ready for the later part of indoor and outdoor," Redman said. "We basically just went out to see what we can do."\nRedman said the distance team was running around 85 miles per week.\nNext weekend the team continues its dual meet competition, traveling to West Lafayette for competition against rivals Purdue and Ohio State. Goss said he expects a much tougher meet at Purdue than they encountered this weekend.\n"Our main objective is getting into a position to improve for the Big Ten Championships," Goss said. "In doing so, we've got to win to be able to do that."\nThe meet begins at 10 a.m. Saturday in Lambert Fieldhouse in West Lafayette.