IU places 5th at Big Ten Indoors

Penn State ended Michigan's try for three straight Big Ten Indoor Indoor Championships Sunday as the Nittany Lions won their first indoor title. IU placed fifth, 18 points behind Ohio State and three ahead of Michigan State.\nThe first day of competition in the championships saw nine of the 12 events break track records at the Recreation Building on the campus of the University of Iowa Saturday. \nOne of those records set a new Big Ten meet mark, and nine athletes in the conference made NCAA provisional qualifying marks.\nLeading the way to Penn State's championship title in the shot put Saturday, PSU senior Ja'Nai O'Conner threw 16.81 meters, which set a new Big Ten meet record, track record and provisionally qualified her for the NCAA Indoor Championships. April Phillips of Michigan set the previous record for the shot put in the Big Ten at last season's championship in Bloomington with a throw of 16.52 meters. \n"Today, I just wanted to go in there and do everything the same way as I have the last couple months," O'Connor said in a statement. "All semester, I've been throwing 53 feet and fouling all of them. It really came down to, in the middle of the meet, my coach changed where I was positioned in the circle. As far as my personal highlights, this is up there, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to celebrate."\nEntering the final day with the lead is something of which to be proud, Penn State coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said after the completion of Saturday's events.\n"I thought we had a very good day. I was pleased with our performances across the board," Alford-Sullivan said in a statement. "Obviously our event champions stood out, with Ja'Nai O'Conner setting a meet record in the shot put and Sara Dougherty winning the pole vault. I think that things are looking good for us for tomorrow, and we are keeping our eyes on everyone else in the meet."\nAt the completion of the first day of competition and six of the 18 final events concluded, IU held ninth place, as no IU athlete finished first in an event final. Both IU and Penn State sent 11 athletes from Saturday to Sunday's finals.\nAfter Saturday's events, IU coach Randy Heisler said he was happy with the way the team competed Saturday.\n"We had a lot of sixth, seventh and eighth place finishes (Saturday) and didn't score a lot of points, but I thought we competed really well in a lot of areas," Heisler said in a statement. "We had a lot of personal records."\nNo IU athlete would finish in first place at the conclusion of the meet yesterday.\nIU junior sprinter Ara Towns finished second in the 60-meter dash with a personal record 7.34 seconds, which provisionally qualifies Towns for the NCAA Indoor Championship. Towns set her previous PR (7.39 seconds) in last season's Big Ten Indoor Championship.\nFellow IU sprinter, freshman Michele Huber, set a PR in the 400-meter dash with a time of 55.77 seconds.\nIU senior Lauren Chesnut, who holds the school record for the indoor triple-jump, came up short in her bid to set a new school record. Chesnut marked the NCAA provisional qualifying mark by jumping 12.66 meters in the triple-jump, good for fourth place.\nIn the last event of meet, the 4x400-meter relay, IU squeezed out a first place finish with a time of 3:41.80, edging second place Iowa who ran 3:44.47.\n-- Contact staff writer Steve Slivka at smslivka@indiana.edu.