The Bowling Green Falcons’ track and field team will be heading to Arrendale, Mich. for the GVSU Big Meet this Friday.
This is the second of two very important matches for the team as this will be their last regular meet of the season. It will determine where the Falcons will be positioned going into the Mid-American Conference Indoor championship event. Like the Akron invitational, this will also be a two-day event.
Coming off their last event, the Falcons are heading into Friday with a lot of momentum. Players such as Lindsay Kaatz, Brooke Pleger, Dena Gates and Krystin Reiser managed to set new personal best records. They followed suit the following day by setting more personal bests and winning two events.
All of attention now lies on the Grand Valley event.
“Good, the practices have been good, the team is giving their all,” said head coach Lou Snelling. “They’re doing everything they can for Friday and Saturday.”
For Snelling, the team’s main points to focus on are aiming for more automatic qualifying marks and performing well in the team’s primary events.
“We all came together this week as a team and the biggest things to work on are the jumps, hurdles and throws, the primary events,” he said. “If we qualify for more automarks, our team will be in a much better position come next week for the MAC championship.”
He feels good for these events, particularly the weight throw, where he feels Brooke Pleger will flourish and continue her great comeback year.
“She feels great; she broke her personal record, so that’s fantastic,” Snelling said.
He also added that despite not being in many events this year, she’s still ranked on the list.
“She hasn’t been in as many events so she’s still getting back into things … but she ranks fourth in the conference in weight throwing.”
One of the other good points on the team is freshman Lindsay Kaatz, who won the mile run at the Akron event. She is currently the third best runner behind Meredith and Durbin but look for her to make an impact at the GVSU.
Senior Jeanette Pettigrew is also having an improved season. After being sidelined with a hamstring injury last year, she has rebounded and is having a pretty good season, topping it off with coming second in the preliminaries and third in the finals.
Snelling said that he hopes she does well in this event to have a good ending in the regular season.
“She’s been doing this for a long time, she’s very experienced and we’re hoping for big things at the event,” he said.
The main thing the Falcons, according to Snelling, are looking forward to are getting more automatic qualifying marks and getting more of their players onto the top 20 list.
“Our goals are to move up on the conference list, we have about 19 in the top 20 list, so we need just to get on the list to make sure we qualify,” he said. “We also need to hit automarks because they have the biggest impact in the championship. As for performance, we really want to take a big step from last year.”
The GVSU Big Meet starts this Friday, Feb. 14 in Allendale, Mich. and is an all-day event.
