Hoosiers have strong showing at meet, look ahead to Indoor Big Tens

Saturday the No. 11 men's track and field team competed in the Hoosier Hills as their final tune-up before the indoor Big Ten Championship meet, which takes place next weekend at the University of Illinois.\nTeam scores were not kept and many of the team's top individuals sat out the meet, but individuals who did perform were impressive. Most notably was senior triple and long jumper Hasaan Reddick, who was an All-American for indoor last year. Reddick jumped a season best 15.7-meter in the triple jump, which is a provisional mark for the NCAA Championship meet March 14 and 15 at the University of Arkansas.\nSenior Matthew Harris won the 60-meter hurdles and in the shot put junior Mike Minton and freshman Ryan Ketchum finished first and second, respectively. In the high jump, sophomore Noah Shelton placed third and 4x400-meter relay team finished second. Sophomore All-American Aarik Wilson sat out of his speciality, the triple and long jump and competed in only the 60-meter dash, where he placed second.\n"This meet was more practice," Wilson said. "I ran the 60-meter to work on my runway speed (for the triple and long jump)."\nThe team did not race any long distance athletes and the middle-distance runners who competed ran shorter events. The focus of the meet was more for the field event athletes.\nNow, the team will prepare for what the focus has been on since the beginning of the season with the Big Ten Championship. They have gradually reduced the training in the weeks leading up and most athletes are feeling fresh.\nCoach Marshall Goss said this year is a breakout season for the Big Ten. An example he gave was in the mile. Usually a 4:12 time scores points for a team whereas this year the time would most likely not qualify for the finals in the event. But, sophomore Eric Redman said while the competition will still be very fast, it should thin out into other events.\n"We're going into what will be a very tough meet this year," Goss said. "We're going to go out and run our best. Our kids are competitive and they'll get the job done."\nGoss said Purdue, Michigan, Minnesota and last year's champion Wisconsin are the favorites heading into the meet. The Hoosiers have already defeated Michigan once during the dual meet season.\nGoss said that the main objective for the meet is to show improvement. So far this season, the team has showed improvement as a whole and Goss wants the trend to continue.\n"We've got to make growth over the last year," Goss said. "We do that by personal records, personal growth and concentration."\nThis week as the coaches make out their final rosters, Goss said it is somewhat of a crap-shoot throughout the conference. Each coach will look to try to predict his counterparts placements and tries to give his athletes their best opportunity to win.\n"We're going to do well," Goss said. "A lot of how we finish is going to come down to where everybody puts their people, but we're going to put out everything we can no matter what"