Track and field teams finish in top-10 at Big Ten Tournament

Sometimes improvement is as good as a win.

That was the case for the men’s and women’s track and field teams this weekend.
The women placed fourth with 69.5 points, up from last year’s total of 33.5. The men, meanwhile, placed sixth with 61 points, better than last year’s 35 points.

Both teams placed ninth last year.

IU coach Ron Helmer said he was proud of the improvement.

“We weren’t very good last year,” Helmer said. “One of our goals was to get better, and to get to the 60 (points) that we did today was great progress.”

Seniors Tiffany Howard and Jeff Coover scored Big Ten titles in shot put and pole vault, respectively.

Howard, who won the first Big Ten Championship, said she was overanxious coming in, so calming herself was important.

“I just wanted to be real calm and collected,” she said. “I had butterflies earlier, but I had to calm myself down, and I had a really good series today.”

Also placing well was senior Molly Beckwith, who scored second place in the 400- and 600-meter runs. Beckwith was also a part of IU’s third-place finishing relay team.

Beckwith said she was thrilled with her run because the cool down period sandwiched
between the two races was short.

“I was happy with my times, which were personal bests,” she said. “I was worried today about the recovery time between the four (hundred) and six (hundred), but I walked around and got myself together and was mentally there.”

Winning the Big Ten titles for both the men and the women was Minnesota. The Golden Gopher men’s team scored 135 points, 42 better than second-place Michigan.

The Minnesota women’s team had it a bit tougher, scoring 129 points to edge out the Wolverines, who scored 125.

Helmer said the team did as well as could be asked, given the nature of the competition. The teams will have three months to prepare for the NCAA championships in June.

“We beat everybody we could beat, which is always our goal,” he said, “and it represents great progress.”