Hoosier Hills Invitational gives IU final Big Ten tune-up

In a meet primarily used as a warm-up for this weekend's Big Ten Championships, the IU women's track and field team had a solid performance at Gladstein Fieldhouse Friday at the Hoosier Hills Invitational.\nIn total, IU posted nine top-five finishes, including two for first place.\nSenior Larra Overton received a first-place finish in the 600-meter event with a time of 1:34.45, continuing a season of top performances. She continuously finished in the top five in four of the Hoosiers' seven meets this season in various distance events. \nThe 4x400-meter relay team also finished in first place and ran a time of 3:42.71, bettering a time of 3:44.80 in last weekend's Tyson Invitational. \nSenior Jean Schaffer and junior Sarah Gilleran tied for second place with 1.63 meters in the high jump. Junior Andrea Dalla Rosa achieved third place with a 16.6-meter effort in the weight throw event. Sophomore Jackie Davis earned fourth in pole vault, finishing with a distance of 3.05 meters. Freshman Ashley Sommer ran for fifth place in the mile with a time of 5:10.85 and junior Lorian Price placed fifth in the 60-meter dash finals with a strong finish of 7.82.\nPrice, who specializes in sprints and long jump, said the Hoosiers competed at an appropriate level Friday in light of the fact the Big Ten Championships are this weekend.\n"I think the team performed very well. The whole team put forth a great effort and competed well," Price said.\nThe meet was also successful at giving athletes like Price a chance to use different techniques than they are used to in order to prepare for the conference championships.\n"I liked that the meet gave me another chance to run the 60-meter dash," Price said. "It's a lot different than running the hurdles, and it gave me a chance to practice the technique and strategy that the dash requires before heading to conference"