IU prepares for tournament

Eight members of the IU men’s and women’s track and field teams will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., March 8-9. There, they will meet the best the NCAA has to offer in the NCAA Indoor Championship Meet.

The Hoosiers will send four individual qualifiers to the championship meet: junior Kyla Buckley and seniors Andy Bayer, Zach Mayhew and Derek Drouin.

Sophomore Rorey Hunter, freshman Nathan Pierre-Louis and graduate student Lance Roller will be joined by Bayer in the Distance Medley Relay with freshman Jordan Gornall as an alternate.

The DMR team barely snuck into the field last weekend, finishing in 11th out of the 27 teams trying for a spot in NCAA’s. Twelve teams made it and IU only beat 13th place by two tenths of a second.

“We were lucky to get in,” IU Coach Ron Helmer said. “But we always focus on getting in first. Once you’re there, anything can happen because everyone handles the meet differently.”

The Hoosiers have finished second in the men’s DMR the past two years and will look to score major points once again.

The last leg of IU’s DMR is Bayer, the defending NCAA Outdoor 1500-meter champion. Helmer said Bayer is the best anchor IU has ever had, and he is incredibly important to the success of this relay.

Hunter and Pierre-Louis have never qualified for NCAA’s.

“I‘ve just told them to relax and treat it like any other race,” Bayer said. “The more pressure you put on yourself the harder it gets. They don’t need to do anything extra or different. Just run how they’ve been running and we’ll do well.”

Bayer is also competing in the 3000-meter run, where he took third at the Big Ten meet two weeks ago.

One of the competitors he lost to at Big Ten’s was Mayhew, who has been to NCAA Championship meets for outdoor track and cross country, but never indoor. He is one of the few 3000-meter runners who is not doubling in another event. Helmer said he wasn’t sure whether that would be to Mayhew’s benefit.

“It’s not going to hurt him,” Helmer said. “But will he be at an advantage? I don’t know, but I hope so.”

Buckley is the sole female representative from IU and will compete in shot put. All season long, Buckley has said she is an elite athlete that can compete with the best in the nation. She’s getting that chance to prove it on Saturday.

The final competitor for the Hoosiers is senior high jumper Derek Drouin. He’ll square off against long-time rival Erik Kynard for the last time at an NCAA indoor meet. The two have split the series 5-5 during their careers.

Helmer said Drouin is capable of winning, but he may have to jump to a world record to do so.

“As noteworthy as Derek Drouin winning the Olympic bronze medal was, Erik Kynard won the silver,” Helmer said. “So what he has to do is be one of the best high jumpers in the world. But the thought process is to jump as high as you can and let the rest of it take care of itself.”