The IU track and field team will travel to University Park, Pennsylvania, for the outdoor Big Ten Championships. The three-day meet will feature the top athletes from around the conference.
Earlier this year, the men’s team ran away with the indoor title while the lady Hoosiers finished in fifth. It was the first indoor win for the men in five seasons and it was the first top five finish for the women since 2011.
Head Coach Ron Helmer said he would like to see similar results during this outdoor competition, but understands how difficult that might be due to the overall strength of the conference.
“We feel like it would be difficult to repeat outdoor,” Helmer said. “We should be in the mix and you never know what’s going to happen. We could get on a roll like we did in indoors.”
The men really stepped it up during the indoor conference meet, dominating the championship by scoring a total of 112 points, 28 more than runner-up Penn State. They had five first-place finishes and several athletes who ended up on the podium.
“Our middle-distance guys were the ones who kind of carried us in indoors, but our long-distance runners have now started to come around over the course of outdoor season,” Helmer said. “I’ve been really happy with the relaxation and focus they are showing.”
The main difference between indoor and outdoor season is the type of events that are competed in. Helmer said outdoor season is tougher for the team because they lose some of their better events while gaining a few they struggle with.
“It definitely starts to chip away at that margin we had,” Helmer said. “That margin was basically there because we just hit everything. When other teams saw that, they didn’t perform too well on the last day.”
Helmer used the distance medley and the 600m run as examples of where the team will get hurt most. Both of those events were won by the Hoosiers during the indoor Big Ten Championships, but will not be in the outdoor meet. Despite facing more challenges, Helmer said he still likes his team’s chances.
“We anticipate that we will score enough points that we can be in the hunt again,” Helmer said. “At the same time, those teams we beat up on in indoors are going to come for us.”
All-American junior Daniel Kuhn, who was a part of the DMR squad and the 600m champion, will not be in this year’s outdoor meet because he was redshirted by the coaching staff earlier this season. Kuhn will be the only athlete missing on the men’s side.
On the women’s side, sophomore sprinter Taylor Williams will be unavailable due to injury. She finished sixth in the 600m at the indoor conference meet. Helmer said his women’s team is kind of in the same situation as the men.
“We lose the 600m where we had a few scorers,” Helmer said. “We also lose the DMR where we were third and we aren’t even going to run the 4x100m relay which is the race that replaces it.”
Helmer said he knows the Big Ten is a good conference, but he still feels like the goal should be the same as indoors where they finished in fifth. One of the top female performers from that meet was junior Katherine Receveur.
The All-American broke her own school record in the 5,000m run on her way to winning the event. She also finished runner-up in the 3,000m run, an event she runs in outdoor season along with the 1,500m run.
“I think that it’s always important to have some level of confidence,” Receveur said. “I’m definitely a little more confident going into the 5k now than I was in indoors because the 5k at the indoor meet went well for me and that gives me confidence heading into the outdoor Big Ten Championships.”
Receveur has only ran the 5k once this outdoor season and that was at the Stanford Invitational where she ran a 15:46.33 and finished third. In the 1,500m, she finished second at the Tennessee Relays and first in the Louisville Invitational.
“For the 1,500m, I’m maybe not as confident as I am in the 5k, but hopefully they both go well,” Receveur said. “I definitely have more confidence going into the 1,500m than I did last year so that’s a nice improvement.”
Receveur said the team as a whole gained plenty of confidence after the efforts the women’s team made during the Penn Relays a few weeks ago. The team broke a school record in the DMR, 4x1,500m and 4x800m relay. Receveur ran in all three events.
“The fact that we were able to go run well after training and on tired legs,” Receveur said. “I think that shows we have more left in the tank and can go perform really well at the Big Ten meet.”
Junior jumper Paul Galas said he’s not worried about the team getting tired legs for this competition because he has faith that the coaching staff knows what they are doing when it comes to training.
“I feel good,” Galas said. “You have to trust that the coaches are training our bodies to be in prime shape come championship time. I feel confident and have confidence in my coaches so the legs should be there.”
Galas earned bronze in the high jump during the indoor conference meet. He was also able to win the high jump at the Louisville Invitational earlier this outdoor season.
“The goal is always to go out and give it your best and try to finish as high as you can,” Galas said. “Our team feels pretty confident right now. We had a slow start to outdoors because of our long postseason indoors, but I think if we can get it together when it matters like we did in indoors, we should be just fine.”
Helmer agreed will Galas and said he believes both teams have a good chance to perform the best they have all year because of the poor weather they’ve dealt with throughout the season. He said some of his athlete’s seeds going in to conference might be lower because of that as well.
“It all evens up at the Big Ten meet,” Helmer said. “We aren’t running through the winds in Tennessee while someone else is running on the west coast where it’s beautiful. We all are going to be running at the same place.”
The Hoosiers will try to replicate their indoor performance this weekend before getting a week off prior to the East Regionals. IU will then have another week off before the team competes at the National Championships, but the Hoosiers aren’t looking that far ahead quite yet.
“The Big Ten is always our main priority,” Galas said. “The regional and national meets are nice, but we have to take care of what’s in front of us first. We have to take it one step at a time and not look too far ahead. That’s what has been stressed upon us.”
