Tyson Invitational offers IU another hot chance

IU has a tough act to follow this weekend.\nThe men's track team has the task of topping last weekend's performances -- four school records and two sub-four minute milers. Fresh off earning a No. 2 www.trackwire.com national ranking, the Hoosiers compete in the prestigious Tyson Invitational this Weekend in Fayetteville, Ark.\nDown in Fayetteville, the site of the NCAA Indoor Championships, IU hopes to get the team ready to return for nationals March 11-12.\n"Notre Dame and Tyson are our two meets to qualify people," said IU head coach Randy Heisler. "Hopefully by then we'll have some more qualifiers."\nLast weekend, the Jefferson twins made history, becoming the first twins in the NCAA to break four minutes in the mile in the same race. Sean Jefferson, this week's Big Ten Athlete of the Week, won the race in 3:56 with twin brother John just behind him in second with a time of 3:57. Sean beat Olympian Jim Spivey's 23-year old indoor mile record. Less than an hour later, junior Stephen Haas shocked the Hoosier faithful by breaking Olympian and American 5,000-meter record-holder Bob Kennedy's 3,000-meter record by four seconds, ranking him second in the NCAA with a time of 7:51. \n"I wasn't even going to run Notre Dame," Haas said. "I was going to sit out and focus on the Tyson 5K. Good thing I ran."\nThis weekend, IU gets another chance to make history and increase its number of NCAA qualifiers. They have an excellent chance of doing so as the Arkansas track is a state-of-the-art hydraulically-banked 200-meter mondo surface. The last time IU competed on it, Sean Jefferson won an NCAA mile title and David Neville earned All-America status in the 200-meters at the 2004 NCAA Indoor Championships. \nIU will also run its first distance medley relay, a race in which they broke the school record with last year's NCAA qualifying race in 9:31. The team of Eric Redman, Rodney Hollis, David Neville and Sean Jefferson won't be the same on the track, as John Jefferson will likely substitute for Sean, while Andre Grimes will fill in for Neville. Regardless, IU will field a strong team. Sean Jefferson will take a crack at the NCAA automatic qualifying standard in the 3,000-meters.\nLost behind the distance history making was the establishment of two other IU school records. The 4x400-meter relay squad broke the IU record of 3:10 with a team comprised of Grimes, Hollis, freshman Doug Dayhoff and Neville, who also won the 200-meters with an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 21.18. Neville anchored the squad to an NCAA provisional qualifying time of junior Stephanos Iannou, a native of Macedonia, who also broke his own 60-meter hurdles school record with a time of 7.88 seconds. Junior All-American leaper Aarik Wilson took a commanding national lead, notching a mark of 16.19-meters and will likely try to better his long jump season best.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Rob DeWitte at rdewitte@indiana.edu.