Nine Lady Lions flew to Johnson City, Tenn. last Friday to compete in the USAir Indoor Invitationals.

Penn State is keeping pace with its expectations this season. Twelve athletes and two relay teams, the 4,800 meters and the distance medley, have qualified for ECAC indoor championships with the better part of the season left. Leslie Lippincott and Wendy Nelson qualified for NCAA Championships scheduled for March.

Nelson, a distance runner, provisionally qualified for the NCAA indoor championships in the 5,000-meter run finishing seventh in 16:46.78. In eighth place, Lady Lion Jenny Weaver followed with her season best performance at 17:14.00.

Nelson said she enjoyed the size of the track.

"Most indoor tracks are 200 meters but the track in Johnson City was 300 meters. That means fewer laps per event," Nelson said.

The Lady Lions' two-mile relay team missed the qualifying mark for NCAAs by six seconds. Shelley Mitchell finished the first leg with a 2:14.8 split time and handed off to Dawn Eidson who clocked in at 2:15.1. Dana Dougan completed her half-mile leg in 2:17.4. Laurie Morrow anchored the event finishing in 2:20.3 for a combined time of 9:07.89.

The same team will compete togather at the Mobil Invitational at James Madison University on Sunday, Feb. 3.

"I really feel that the two-mile team will qualify for NCAA championships at Mobil," Coach Teri Jordan said.

Mitchell didn't just stop at the two-mile. She also finished 20th in the 55-meter hurdles out of 54 competitors in 8.35 seconds.

Lippincott finished 12th in the high jump with 5'6". In order to weed out the competitors quickly, the officials started the event at a high mark. After the first eliminations, just 12 of the starting 36 jumpers were left in the event.

Jackie Brown had a season best in the 200 meters with a 25.52, and Amanda Dudley set her indoor lifetime best in the mile with a 5:04.