Hoosiers head to Texas

After a highly-successful weekend split between the Stanford Invitational and the Florida Relays, the men's track team will compete this weekend as one at the 77th-annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, a meet perennially attracting top collegiate and professional talent. \nThe Texas Relays is typically quite strong in the sprints, which should provide tough competition for IU sophomore All-American David Neville, who will race in the 4x400-meter relay and 4x200-meter relay. \nAnother of the meet's strengths are the jumps, where junior All-American Aarik Wilson is entered in both the triple and long jump. Wilson currently leads the nation in the triple jump.\nSeveral Hoosiers look to continue early outdoor success. At Florida, junior Ryan Ketchum notched a shot put victory and also threw regional qualifying marks in both the shot put and discus. Senior thrower Mike Minton got back on track in Gainesville, Fla.\n"It was nice to come out of a meet feeling good about my performance," Minton said. "I felt good about the disc, and finally threw over 60-feet in the shot again, so I'm hoping to use Texas to gain some momentum for this -- my final season."\nA number of athletes will compete in their season debut. Senior sprinter Contrell Ash will run the 100-meters and also a leg on the 4x100-meter relay. Senior hurdler Daniel Martin returns from an injury that kept him out of competition indoors to run the 400-meter hurdles. \nIU also opens its season in the longest hurdle event, the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Sophomore Marcus Aguilar, junior Charlie Koeppen and senior Matt Sweetman will open their seasons with hopes of nearing the regional qualifying standard of 9:08. Sweetman has the fastest returning time, just off the standard at 9:10. Koeppen, a first-year transfer from Northern Arizona, will race the event for the first time.\n"Since I've never run it before, I really don't know what to expect," Koeppen said. "I've been working on hurdling, and training has been a little better than indoors so I'm optimistic."\n"Texas is a solid opening race for the steeplers," IU assistant coach Robert Chapman said. "It's always small enough that there is room to hurdle in a season debut, but fast enough that if someone's ready they can run a fast time."\n-- Contact staff writer Rob DeWitte at rdewitte@indiana.edu.