Indiana Invitational promises top talent

Today kicks off the No. 17 men's track and field team's first home meet of the season. The Indiana Invitational is a two day meet beginning this afternoon at 4 p.m. and resuming tomorrow at noon.\nSo far this season, the team has faced only dual meet competition. The team dominated their last meet at Illinois last weekend to give them some momentum entering the meet today. Though no team score will be kept, this will be the team's first taste of a big meet atmosphere this season.\n"It at least gives you a feel of what the Big Tens will be like, when you qualify for one event one day then have to come back for the finals the next day," coach Marshall Goss said.\nSome of the athletes to watch are senior jumper Hasaan Reddick, sophomore middle distance runners Rodney and Russell Hollis, junior sprinter Contrell Ash and freshman thrower Wil Fleming.\nThe team's points leader in the early portion of the season has been All-American jumper sophomore Aarik Wilson. Wilson has been undefeated in both the long and triple jump and looks to improve even more on his marks this weekend. Wilson has already met the provisional marks for the NCAA Championship meet.\n"We've got a lot of momentum coming in," Wilson said. "And also we're starting to cut back on our training and test where we are for the Big Tens."\nThis will be the strongest competition that the team has faced yet this season. More than 25 teams from surrounding states will make the trip to Bloomington. Goss said that every team will bring different strengths, which will make for an excellent all around track meet.\n"I think it will be the deepest competition that we have had to run against this season so far," assistant coach Ed Beathea said. "Because of the nature and the number of entries that there are that this will make it the toughest meet we've had so far."\nOne event that Goss said he was particularly excited about is the mile. There will be two sections of the mile, the first will open the meet at 3:50 today. In this race, the athletes hope to push the four-minute mark. The Hoosiers will feature sophomores John and Sean Jefferson and Eric Redman, as well as sophomore Tom Burns who will rabbit the race. John Jefferson was an All-American in the indoor mile a year ago.\n"We've set up a race that should be very exciting for everyone to watch," Goss said. "It should be a very, very fast mile"