Hoosiers in Penn State for Big Ten championships

The culmination of a long season of indoor and outdoor meets for the IU track and field squads is in sight. This weekend, the squads will be traveling to Penn State for the Outdoor Big Ten championships.\nFor the women’s team, their formula is set ­– strong senior leadership earning their expected points and an up-start freshman class stealing points other teams expect to get.\nThe head of the women’s senior class is Stacey Clausing. Clausing is the workhorse for the squad. This week, she was named Big Ten track athlete of the week after running a leg in the 4x100-meter relay that qualified for the NCAA Mideast regional meet.\nThis was after she ran and qualified in the 200-meter dash and ran in the 100-meter dash where she finished second overall. At any meet, Clausing could run up to five events, said women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson. \nClausing qualified for the NCAA Mideast regional in the 200-meter dash, 400-meter dash and has a leg of the 4x100-meter relay squad that has qualified.\n“(The award is) well deserved,” Wilson said. “Stacey has done a lot for our program, and I don’t think she is done. We’re hoping to get the 4x400-meter relay squad qualified for regionals this weekend, and she will be running in that.”\nThe standout freshman on the squad is undoubtedly pole-vaulter Vera Neuenswander. Neuenswander is ranked the No. 1 freshman pole-vaulter in the nation and sixth in the nation overall. Last weekend, she set an IU record for women’s pole-vault with a mark of 4.12 meters.\nBut it was Neuenswander’s second place performance at the Big Ten indoor meet where she set a Big Ten record with a clearance of 4.11 meters that, according to Wilson, got everyone on the team excited and led to IU doubling their point total from the previous year.\n“At these meets, anything can happen,” Wilson said. “We just need to go and compete. If the seniors can perform well, it will set a tone for the team, and we have a big class of 22 freshmen, which are the ones who are on the bubble of scoring that we need to get scoring.”\nOn the men’s side, the bottom line is to simply perform, because they are a threat to finish anywhere in the top five with the talent they have after finishing fifth at the Indoor Big Tens.\nSophomore sprinter Wil Glover injured his hamstring, leaving big holes in the 100-meter dash and 4x100-meter relay squad. Luckily, junior Marcus Thigpen, football running back and sprinter, is good at running through holes. He was able to help the squad qualify for regionals, but the team would have been much stronger had both Thigpen and Glover been running.\nThe good news is that men’s interim head coach Wayne Pate has his jumpers healthy and assistant coach Robert Chapman has his distance team running the best they have all year.\n“Our distance crew is going to show up, I’m counting on it,” Pate said. “Our runners have been running well. Coach Chapman has done a great job in preparing them and hopefully they’ll be ready to run.”\nThe jumpers were the team that gathered the most points for the Hoosiers at Indoor Big Tens. Junior Kyle Jenkins took first in the triple jump and Senior Kiwan Lawson won the long jump.\n“Kyle and Kiwan did well at indoors and now know what to expect and what it takes to win,” Pate said. “Hopefully we have worked on the right things and it all comes together. Our goal is to do better than we did at indoors.”