Loss at Purdue disappointing

WEST LAFAYETTE -- The No. 14 men's track and field team stumbled in a three-way meet involving No. 13 Purdue and Ohio State Saturday. The team traveled to Purdue for the second indoor meet of the season.\nAfter controlling the opening meet of the season at Michigan, the team struggled in their first competitive meet of the season. An unimpressed coach Marshall Goss said he thought the team did not show an impressive team mentality.\n"As a whole, there's no reason to participate the way we did," Goss said. "With some guys, there's too much 'me' and not enough 'we.' We've got to get out of that if we want to be competitive."\nThe team finished second to Purdue by only four points. In many areas, the team was quite impressive. Sophomore Aarik Wilson won both the triple jump and the long jump and freshman Sean Jefferson kicked his way to a victory in the mile. Sophomore Russell Hollis earned the win in the 600-meter and the 4x400-meter.\n"I think the way some people were feeling may have affected their competitiveness, but in general everyone still brings a lot to the table," junior Ryan Sarbinoff said. "Everything will come together just fine."\nSarbinoff said he thought the team will be much better in the big meets, such as the Indiana Invitational Feb. 7 and 8. He said other teams have more depth but not the top-end talent that scores points in big meets. \nIU's training focuses more toward the later part of the indoor and outdoor season.\n"I just wanted to use this meet as part of a workout because we ran hard this last week and I didn't want to taper my training just for this race," Jefferson said. "It was just another tune up for getting ready later in the season."\nEven with training through the meet, Jefferson was still able to hold off a strong move from Ohio State's sophomore Aaron Fisher to earn the victory in the mile.\nOther impressive performances for the meet included senior Hasaan Reddick with a second place finish in the triple jump, Sarbinoff with a second place finish in the 400-meter and freshman Andre Grimes with a third place finish in the 60-meter dash.\n"There were some places we did well, but there were some places we really need to improve in," Goss said. "We've got to take this as a lesson and come back and correct our errors."\nThe team continues their dual meet season against Big Ten competition Saturday at Illinois. There, they will face Illinois, Missouri and Baylor.