The Bowling Green State University track and field team will get their first chance of the outdoor season to compete against fellow Mid-American Conference schools tomorrow when they travel to Kalamazoo, Mich. to compete in the Western Michigan Invitational. The Falcons will be taking a full squad to Kalamazoo this weekend, as the team has been able to stay injury-free thus far. This will eliminate the pressure of competing in multiple events that the runners faced last weekend at the Clemson Relays. Head coach Scott Sehmann has been happy with the team’s preparation going into this weekend’s meet.
“I think we definitely had three good days of weather to practice in, the workouts were real solid,” Sehmann said.
The 2003 MAC Outdoor Track and Field Preseason Coaches was released earlier this week. The Falcons were predicted to finish 10th.
“We’d like to go beyond that. We strive to get better. I think that we are capable of doing better, it’s just a matter of whether or not our team is willing to continue to pay the price to take that step forward. We really want to and I really think we can,” Sehmann said.
The Falcons will be facing MAC rivals Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois. Central, Eastern and Western were predicted to finish third through fifth in the MAC, Northern was predicted to finish 13th. In addition to these MAC schools, Detroit Mercy, Notre Dame and Wisconsin Milwaukee will also participate in tomorrow’s meet.
The Western Michigan Invitational will not be a scored meet. This means that individual scores will be kept, but team scores will not.
Ball State was the coaches favorite to win the MAC outdoor track and field championship, receiving 76 points. Kent State was a close second with 72 points. CMU, EMU and WMU were third through fifth with 66, 61 and 51 points respectively. Toledo was sixth with 45 points followed by a tie for seventh between Miami and Akron with 41 points apiece. Ninth through 13th place were occupied by: Buffalo (28), BG (24), Ohio University (23), Marshall (10) and Northern Illinois (8).
The Falcons will regain the services of Mary Willems for tomorrow’s meet. Willems missed the Clemson meet to honor a student teaching commitment. Willems is currently ranked 23rd in the nation in the weight throw.
Kerri McClung will look to build upon her first place performance in the shot put. Her mark of 47 feet 7.25 inches moved her into fifth place in school history for that event.
The Falcons also had a successful day in the relay events at Clemson, which were a major focus for them last weekend. With the strain of running multiple events gone this weekend, the runners should be able to build on that success. The meet is scheduled to get underway at 10 a.m.
