Teams host home meet

This weekend the men's track and field team races at home for the first time of the outdoor season. This is one of only two home meets the team will compete in all season. The team has faced top notch competition at Texas and Florida the last two weeks to open the season and now faces Central Michigan and Indiana State in a three way meet.\nCoach Marshall Goss stressed the importance of the meet and said the team will have to be at its best to beat Central Michigan. The Chippewas started out the season ranked higher than the Hoosiers, and they are in the process of building a solid program, Goss said.\n"We're going to have to respond very well at home," Goss said. "It's really just going to be a great meet."\nCentral Michigan competed against IU last weekend at the Texas Relays where they had several top performers, including senior Dana Thomas, who broke the school record in the decathlon. The Hoosiers have an advantage, having competed in high quality meets for the last two weeks.\n"This week could be a struggle," Central Michigan coach Jim Knapp said in a statement. "We are going against two strong track programs who already have two meets under their belts."\nGoss said he hopes for more athletes to meet the NCAA regional provisional mark for their events. Already the team has several athletes who have met their marks, but Goss said he wants many more. He said in some events the team should have as many as three athletes meeting the provisional marks.\n"We're going to have to have a lot of people making provisionals if we want to win," Goss said.\nThe team enters the meet ranked No. 15 in the Trackwire Team Power Rankings. They are led by several All-Americans, including senior hammer thrower Adam Judge, sophomore triple and long jumper Aarik Wilson and sophomore miler John Jefferson. Wilson was the Big Ten Athlete of the Week for the week of March 31 after he won both of his events at the Florida Relays. Last week, Judge set a new school record in the hammer throw at the Texas Relays.\nThe team has aspirations for a Big Ten championship this season after earning fifth place in the meet for the indoor season. They had a staggering NCAA Championship meet, earning a ninth place team finish on the backs of Wilson and Jefferson, who were both national runners-up. They finished second among Big Ten schools at the meet.\nThe men will race with the women's team starting at noon Saturday at the Haugh Track and Field complex.