The IU men’s track and field team started as the No. 1 dual meet team in initial polls earlier this season and finished in the same spot in the final poll released by trackandfieldnews.com.
Junior Daniel Kuhn, who won Big Ten Track Athlete of the Week on Wednesday for his performance at the Meyo Invitational in South Bend, Indiana. Performances like his individual performance have added up to success for the team.
Last week, Kuhn broke the school record in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:46.42. His time is the fastest in the NCAA this year.
However, Kuhn will be resting this week as the Hoosiers have their last home meet of the indoor season. The Hoosier Hills Invitational will start at 4 p.m. Friday at Gladstein Fieldhouse. IU Coach Ron Helmer said this meet will be the last time many of his athletes will compete before the Big Ten Championships in two weeks, despite another meet scheduled at Notre Dame next weekend.
“Typically we take the week before the Big Ten off,” Helmer said. “Our only chance to qualify is next week so they need to sit out this week. Everybody else will be off next week.”
Helmer said there are five or six people traveling elsewhere to compete this week. He also said he is sitting out juniors Joe Murphy and Jordan Huntoon and freshman Kyle Mau because they will be participating in the distance medley relay next week at the Alex Wilson Invitational in South Bend, Indiana.
Mau is only a freshman, but he has already had many good performances in his career such as his mile time last week at the Meyo Invitational. He sat out the week before and returned with a time of 4:00.37 and a first-place finish.
“We knew it was a fast field,” Mau said. “Coach just told Joe and I to relax for the first 800 meters of the race so that we could put ourselves in position to close well, and I feel like we both did a good job of that.”
Mau said the rest of the distance runners feel pretty good about where they are as they head into the postseason and he’s excited to see a lot of better results. Helmer agreed with Mau and said this is when expectations go up.
“We are at a time in the year where performances should be starting to come,” Helmer said. “We’ve sharpened up. We are starting to get some rest, and now we should be starting to see some good marks from everyone.”
Helmer praised his middle-distance and distance runners and said he is still happy with the effort he gets from them despite his higher expectations for the group.
“We got a few people who just race with no conscience,” Helmer said. “They don’t think about it. They don’t worry about it, and those three or four people who are like are big time when the pressure is on.”
Another Hoosier who has proven he is not afraid of pressure is junior Andrew Miller. He has been on fire recently in the weight throw by breaking the school record in back-to-back weeks. Miller said he is very confident as the Big Ten Championships near.
“It’s definitely nice knowing that I am coming off a few good weeks,” Miller said. “It’s nice to know that I have what it takes already and that I just need to relax and keep on doing what I’ve been doing.”
Miller said the coaches have been training him all season for this kind of big stage.
“The ability to maintain their composure in a high-pressure environment is extremely important,” Helmer said. “There is nothing more high pressure than the Big Ten Championships. The National Championships are important, but not everyone makes it there so for a lot of people, the Big Ten meet is their first chance to compete at that kind of level.”
