Track and field team to host first indoor meet

The IU track and field team will start the indoor season this weekend when it plays host to its first indoor track meet on Friday. The competition will be a two-day event and it will end on Saturday with the men’s and women’s pentathlon.

IU Coach Ron Helmer said he expects a solid performance from his distance runners.

“The cross country athletes who were at peak fitness a couple of weeks ago, it is pretty easy to sustain that to this week,” Helmer said. “I expect that we are going to get some pretty good marks in the distance events.”

Junior Rorey Hunter just finished the cross country season by competing in the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Hunter was a part of last year’s All-American Distance Medley Relay team that finished fourth at the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championships. He will run in the one-kilometer race for the Hoosiers on Friday.

“The 1K is a bit of a difference from the 10K I ran a few weeks ago at Nationals,” Hunter said. “I’ve had a couple weeks of training for a faster pace race but definitely not enough time for optimal results.”

According to Helmer, the majority of the distance runners also run on the cross country team so they have been training all year. The sprinters started their first preseason workout the first Tuesday after Labor Day.

“We went into the Tuesday after Labor Day, we started our preseason work and then it was the 26th of October when we were able to start full time workouts.”

Senior Kyla Buckley is a thrower for the Hoosiers who won the Big Ten Indoor Championship in shot put last year. Buckley is not looking for a specific mark to hit this weekend. She said her goal for Friday’s meet is to get back into the swing of things.

“I’m just going to go out and throw,” Buckley said. “There is not a certain mark I want to hit. I had surgery in September so I’m kind of coming back from that.”

This will be the first of five home meets for the IU Indoor season. The first race will be the 60-meter trials at 5 p.m. in the Gladstein Fieldhouse. The field events will begin at 5:15 p.m., starting with the women’s 20-pound weight throw.

“The first meet is always just fun to get the little jitters out and then go from there,” Buckley said. “I just have to slow down let it out and have fun.”

Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.