No. 19 IU earns second win of season over Illinois

The No. 19 IU men's track and field team earned its second indoor win of the season on Saturday as they defeated host Illinois, Missouri and Eastern Illinois. IU scored 180.5 points to defeat its nearest competitor, Illinois, who had 142. Missouri finished third with 135.5 points, and Eastern Illinois had 79.\nIt was a well-timed victory with their first home meet, the Indiana Invitational, a week away. The team was also coming off of a disappointing finish at Purdue a week ago.\nCoach Marshall Goss said this was an important meet in terms of momentum heading into bigger indoor meets. The meet at Purdue had set the team off-track from where they wanted to be, but the win was a step in the right direction.\n"At Purdue, we beat ourselves," Goss said. "We needed to turn that around, and I think we did."\nThe team dominated the meet with seven athletes earning individual victories and the distance medley relay winning in dramatic fashion.\nSophomore All-American Aarik Wilson continued his winning ways with a victory in both the triple jump and long jump with senior Hasaan Reddick, finishing right behind in second in both. Freshman Wil Fleming finished third in the weight throw with a throw of 17.1 meters, which ranked third in school history.\nJunior Daniel Martin won the 400-meter dash, filling in for junior Ryan Sarbinoff who sat out the meet nursing an injured leg. Sarbinoff has been the team's top 400-meter runner in the two previous meets with Martin close behind. With Sarbinoff out Saturday, Martin carried the event for the team.\n"I think it was just coming in and getting my confidence up," Martin said. "I didn't run bad in the first two meets, but I was sort of hesitant. Before the race, coach just said not to hold back, and I didn't."\nAlso earning victories for the team were junior Contrell Ash in the 200-meter, junior Cedric Jackson in the 600-meter, sophomore John Jefferson in the mile and sophomore Stephen Haas in the 3000-meter.\nNow the team shifts its focus to the Indiana Invitational next weekend. The team had been looking ahead to the meet since the beginning of the season as the first real test against top competition in a two-day meet.\n"We're going for a big one," Goss said. "Next week, tell everybody to be out there at 4:00 and they'll see a great race"