Bowling Green State University will host the MAC indoor track and field championships today and Saturday at the Perry Field House indoor track complex. Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete for one of the top spots in the MAC conference. The meet will be one of the climactic events of the 2002 indoor season.
The women’s team approaches the league championships after a first place finish two weeks ago at the All-Ohio Championships. Kent State and Eastern Michigan will compete this weekend, two of the top teams in the MAC, making for a tougher field. BG’s head track coach, Scott Sehmann, believes that if the team improves their personal bests at the meet they will also increase the chance of a strong team finish in the overall competition.
“Hopefully they’ve garnered some confidence from the success that they’ve had in the last couple weeks and can carry it over to this next weekend,” Sehmann said.
Some of BG’s strongest events will be the 4×400 meter relay, the distance medley relay and the field events. At the All-Ohio Championships the 4×400 team of Alicia Taylor, Ellen Alkire, JoVonne Houpe, and Tamika Dixon won the championship and broke the school record. They will look to lower their time even more this weekend.
The Bowling Green men’s team will look to finish in the top half of the competition according to head coach Sterling Martin. BG will look to finish ahead of Buffalo, Marshall, and Akron in the team standings of what Martin calls “one of the top track and field conferences in the country.”
Individuals who should earn points for the Falcons include 400-meter runner Zerian Peterson and 800 meter runner Josh Cook. “Zerian has a slight edge over his competitors because most of them have run on oversized tracks while he is used to the smaller and tighter turns of the 200 meter track,” said Martin.
Martin anticipates both Peterson and Cook placing in the top three in their events.
The meet will start today with competition consisting mainly of prelims with finals in the long jump, pole vault, weight throw, 5000-meter run, and distance medley relay. Field event finals will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday while finals for the running events will start at 1 p.m.
