MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Middle Tennessee's track and field teams open a two-week home stand this weekend, as they play host to Saturday's 2011 Middle Tennessee Invitational beginning at 8:30 a.m., at Murphy Center.
With the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships less than a month away, head coach Dean Hayes uses these mid-season meets to continue to prepare and get faster. For this reason, a handful of MT athletes will focus on their secondary events this weekend as well as running their primary disciplines in order to place better come conference time.
"We compete to win the Sun Belt," said Hayes. "We like running them in different events in these preparation meet, because it helps them focus on different aspects of their main distance. Our quarter-milers, for example, will run the short sprint races, to give them some extra speed work, which will pay off in the longer 400 meters."
Saturday's meet also provides an excellent opportunity for the Blue Raiders to size up some of their top Sun Belt competition with men's and women's teams from UALR and WKU to be present. Former OVC rivals Tennessee State and Eastern Kentucky are also scheduled to compete.
"We see Western quite a bit and we pretty much know what they have, but this will be a great opportunity to run against them and get a look at UALR, someone we have not gone up against this year."
The Blue Raider men's squad enters Saturday's contest with two reigning athletes of the week in quarter-miler Noah Akwu and jumper Josh Butler. Each performed well last weekend in Lexington, Ky., and they both rank high in the NCAA. The duo should be among the top male finishers in their events.
Women's athletes to watch are newcomers Rosina Amenebede and France Makabu who both sit in the top three in the Sun Belt in their respective events.
Live results and full post-meet coverage will be available on GoBlueRaiders.com.
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