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Monday, March 18
The Indiana Daily Student

sports track & field

Hoosiers look to stay perfect in 2017

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The men’s track team will be in action this Saturday as it faces off against long-time rival Purdue. IU gained some early confidence by defeating Tennessee last week.

IU Coach Ron Helmer said he saw last week’s performance as a sign of progression and would like to build on that heading into Saturday’s meet.

“What I hope is that it is validation for the work we have been doing,” Helmer said. “We started talking last summer and early fall about what we needed to do as individuals, so we, as a team, could start to grow and be the team that we want to be.”

IU’s quality start suggests it might be heading in the right direction, but Purdue will be a tough test that might reveal more of what this team is made of in 2017.

“We don’t need a lot to get excited about running the meet against Purdue, but you can’t beat a good team like Purdue unless you get an all-across-the-board team effort,” Helmer said.

Helmer said there are six to eight guys that he felt confident about going into each meet. With a big matchup against Purdue coming up, his confidence in them is the same. There are a handful of athletes, including sophomore throwers Willie Morrison and David Schall, that he expects to come out and perform this Saturday. Helmer also praised sophomores Eric Bethea and Treyton Harris for their recent successes in multiple jumping events, but said he is most excited to watch junior Daniel Kuhn run in his first 600-meter of the year.

“He was the Big Ten champion last year and ran the fourth- or fifth-fastest time ever by an American collegiate,” Helmer said. “So it’ll be fun to watch him run his first 600.”

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