Several travel to West Coast

This weekend most of the No. 21 men's track and field team will stay home, but several will travel to Walnut, Calif., for the Mt. Sac Relays, which began Thursday and will continue through Saturday. There the athletes will face top national competition, as they have all season so far.\nOnly sophomore All-American triple jumper Aarik Wilson and the distance runners will make the trip to compete in the race. The rest of the team will utilize the bye week in preparation for next week when they will compete in either the Drake Relays in Iowa or the Penn Relays in Pennsylvania.\n"We're just taking the distance guys and Aarik out, and hopefully we'll get them in some competitive events," coach Marshall Goss said.\nWilson usually competes in both the long and triple jumps, but this weekend will focus completely on the triple jump. He said the meet will feature the best triple jumpers in the nation, including post-collegiate athletes. Several jumpers at the meet will push the 57-foot mark.\n"You always go into a meet with the objective of winning, but I really just want to get some experience jumping against the top guys before the USATF nationals meet," Wilson said. "I want to go out and make them know my name."\nWilson has asserted himself on the collegiate level, twice earning runner-up at NCAA Championships. For the first time in his career, he now looks to gain experience against post-collegiate competition. He said this experience will help later in the season and next year as he pushes to make the Olympic team. He also said it is later in the season when he will be at his best. This meet is preparation for then.\n"If I win this thing, it's going to have to be off guts," Wilson said. "We focus our training toward the end of the season, but the competition there will definitely pull me to a good mark."\nThe distance runners also hope the fast competition will lead to impressive marks. Last week the distance crew had four athletes meet NCAA regional provisional marks and look to add more to the list this week.\nLast weekend the Jefferson twins, sophomore John and redshirt freshman Sean, had impressive performances against Central Michigan and Indiana State. Both twins earned victories, John in the 5,000 meter and Sean in the 1,500 meter. Sean entered as the top seed in his 5,000 meter race, which took place late last night.\nThe team also features juniors Bart Phariss and Chad Andrews as the two and three seed respectively in the 10,000 meter race. Also competing at the meet are juniors Chris Powers and Nathan Purcell, sophomore Eric Redman and freshman Stephen Haas.\nResults for the meet can be found at http://vm.mtsac.edu/relays.