Team has strong showing out west

This weekend only the distance runners and sophomore All-American triple jumper Aarik Wilson competed at the Mt. Sac Relays at Mt. San Antonio College in California. The Jefferson twins, sophomore John and redshirt freshman Sean, won their events with impressive times to lead the team to a successful finish at the meet.\nSean competed first on Thursday night in the 5,000 meter run, which he won in a time of 13:58.52. He easily met the NCAA provisional mark for the event in his way to defeating top national competition. The performance marked only the sixth athlete in the history of IU to break 14 minutes in the 5,000 meter race.\nOn the second day of competition, All-American miler John Jefferson raced in the 1,500 meter race and defeated a phenomenal field, which included indoor national champion Chris Mulvaney from Arkansas. Mulvaney was the only athlete to defeat John as he finished runner-up in the indoor mile this winter. He finished with a time of 3:41.53, which is the seventh best 1,500 in the history of IU.\n"This meet was definitely a success with these two performances," coach Marshall Goss said. "We came out here to see where our distance program stands, and we are pleased with what we saw."\nThe Hoosiers were able to qualify several more athletes in the 1,500 meter and 5,000 meter distances, including junior Chris Powers and freshman Stephen Haas in the 5,000 and sophomore Eric Redman in the 1,500.\n"We're one of the top distance programs in the Big Ten, which means we're also competitive with the top programs nationally," Goss said. "These guys have shown we're able to compete with teams like Arkansas and Stanford."\nAlso making the trip to California, Wilson finished ninth in the triple jump. He said before the meet that he just wanted to use the meet to face top competition and that even if he did not win the meet, he will be able to later in the season when he peaks in his training. Wilson has twice been a runner-up in the event at the NCAA Championships and has title aspirations this year.\nNext weekend, the team will split up to competitive track meets in Des Moines, Iowa, and Philadelphia, Penn., for the Drake Relays and the Penn Relays respectively.