Team finishes fifth in conference meet

The men's indoor track and field team competed in the Big Ten Championship this past weekend, placing fifth in team competition against a tough field. Wisconsin won a tight team race for the second year in a row, defeating Minnesota by only two points.\nWisconsin was able to clinch the team championship thanks to a strong group of distance runners, while Minnesota relied on depth and Purdue used a 1-2-3-4 finish in the 60 to finish third place.\nThe Hoosiers came into the meet reeling, due to a number of untimely injuries. The team relied on strong performances by top athletes and had several veterans step up with solid performances as well.\n"We definitely would have liked to have a lot better performance than fifth place, but being realistic what we did in the meet was rewarding to the kids," coach Marshall Goss said. "Almost everybody across the board put it on the line, and we had many personal records."\nThe team was led as it has been by sophomore All-American Aarik Wilson. He earned victories in both the triple and long jump, in spite of what he called a bad performance in the triple jump.\n"I didn't do what I needed to do in the triple, and I thought the guy who got second was going to beat me," Wilson said. "The long jump went real well though, and I'm happy with how I did there."\nNow Wilson sets his focus to the NCAA Championships in two weeks where he is one of the favorites for the individual title in the triple jump. Currently he is ranked fourth in the nation in the event, but he said he has as good of a shot as anyone to win it.\nSenior Hasaan Reddick also placed well in the triple jump, finishing third place.\nAlso earning a victory for team was sophomore John Jefferson in the mile. Goss said his twin brother Sean was a big reason why John was able to win the race. Sean said the mile in the conference meet is known to wait for the kick. He made an early move which essentially took him out of the race, but it helped his brother hold off a strong runner from Michigan, Nick Willis.\nThe team received clutch performances from veterans this weekend. Senior hurdler Matt Harris and junior sprinter Contrell Ash went up against top athletes in the nation and placed well. Harris earned fourth in the hurdles, and Ash overcame problems with the timing system to place seventh in the 60m and fifth in the 200m with seasonal personal records in both.\n"I ran pretty good this weekend," Ash said. "We were disappointed with how the 60m went. We had to run it two or three times before they finally got it down because of the timing system, and that took away from my time before the 200m."\nThe distance medley relay team earned a third place victory with strong performances from each participant. Junior Casey Friske, junior Daniel Martin and freshman Wil Fleming also had impressive performances.