Mother Nature has been pretty mean to the area sports teams.

For the men's track team, the foul weather has meant being stuck inside at the Greenberg Sports Complex for a rather substantial portion of the past two weeks.

And now that rain has finally cleared the snow off of the outdoor track, the team prepares for its outdoor season opener on campus at 11:30 tomorrow morning in the Jim Thorpe Invitational.

But this won't be a true outdoor meet.

Because of the recent and impending inclement weather, the jumping events will take place at Greenberg, as will any running events that may need to be moved indoors due to the weather.

This open meet will host athletes from junior colleges, small schools and universities and possibly some Canadian track athletes.

"This meet is going to be interesting," hurdler Kevin Cripanuk said. "We'll be going into this pretty blind, not being able to practice actual races much."

But the team has to endure, with a dual meet on the horizon next weekend, a showdown with Connectitcut.

"Coming out of this meet, we want to be ready to go after UConn," Coach Harry Groves said.

"We have a big meet next week, so we have to get the most out of these practices and the meet," Cripanuk said.

With the bad weather lately, runners and hurdlers have been unable to get the feel for their particular events.

"With the bad weather, we can't get on the track and practice events," Cripanuk said. "As for my event (the 400 meter hurdles), I haven't stepped the 13 step between hurdles yet. People like Andy Scott haven't jumped barriers (for the steeplechase)."

-- Brian Kelley was scheduled to participate in the decathlon at the Florida Relays in Gainesville this past Wednesday and Thursday, but pulled up lame in the 100-meter dash, the first event of the competition. It is speculated that he re-aggravated an injury that he got while lifting several days earlier.