Women's sprinters will be main source of points this weekend

The Hoosiers are a week behind.\nWhen weather rained on IU's parade at the Florida Relays, the Hoosiers lost a week of competition.\nIU hopes to rebound from the setback this afternoon and tomorrow when they host the annual Indiana Relays in one of only two regular season home meets. \n"Last week we spent four days in the rain, so we're a week behind," said IU coach Randy Heisler. "This meet was put together initially as a check to see where we're at for those kids whose indoor season ended at Big Tens and haven't competed in a month."\nThe Indiana Relays will be a scored meet against Central Michigan University and Army, as well as 15 high school teams mixed into the competition. Notre Dame was supposed to compete originally, but have since decided not to come due to cold weather. \nHeisler wants to see his team succeed, but is realistic at the same time. Currently, he just wants his team survive to fight another day.\n"I'll tell you right now with our women's team, we're young, inexperienced and we are beat up," Heisler said. "We have four or five athletes who would score for us at the high conference level who are not competing because of injury." \nOne positive coming out of this squad's depletion of high level talent is that athletes who otherwise would not have the chance to compete now have the opportunity. \nRegardless of who is on the active roster and who is not, the athletes are glad to be back home again in Indiana for a scored meet.\n"I definitely prefer home meets just because we don't have to travel," said sophomore sprinter Michelle Huber. "So I'm really excited to be home especially for a scored meet because it puts more pressure on the athletes to do well for the team." \nHuber's main goal for this weekend is to help win the four by 400 meter relay.\nThe sprinters will be the main force of IU points and face a big challenge ahead of them, because most of the other events are taking the weekend off. \n"Everyone just needs to go out there and do the best they can," said sophomore Stacey Clausing. "It's going to be interesting to see how many points we can score with as little people as we have competing." \nThe Indiana Relays take off tonight at 5 p.m. at the Billy Hayes Track and Field Complex and concludes Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. \n-- Contact Staff Writer John Fischer at jbfische@indiana.edu.