Last year Kent State beat the women's indoor track team by three points. This year the Lady Lions got their revenge, thrashing the Lady Flashes 100-47.

The quadrangular meet between Kent State, Shippensburg, East Stroudsburg and host Penn State turned into an all-around victory for the host, as well as practice for Big Ten Championships.

"I think if you look at this meet itself and how many season-best performances and personal bests we had," Coach Teri Jordan said, "that would be the thing that stands out in my mind even more than the score between Kent State and ourselves."

With the big events in the indoor season approaching fast, signaling the end of the season, individual performances are key.

"It was good build-up to Big Tens next week," Jordan said. "And a good propulsion into the outdoor season."

Outdoor season begins only one week after nationals. This doesn't leave the runners with much of a break.

The last three weeks of the indoor season will be hectic for the Lady Lions and hopes are high for the championships this Saturday.

"At the Big Tens we're looking forward to having the opportunity to compete," Jordan said. "Last year we finished fourth and that was a tremendous performance. If we could match that, we would be very happy."

Anticipation among the team is rising for the championships this coming weekend.

"The team really pulled together," Alicia Porro said of last weekend's competition, "and (we are) really psyched up for this weekend."

Unfortunately, injuries may keep some runners from experiencing the big event.

Holly Jones hurt her hip last Friday, and Kelly Hickman had a swollen ankle which kept her from competing in her last two races.

"(Hickman) only ran one race today," Jordan said, "This was the first time she's had anything happen, so I can't say how bad it is. I hope it's just a one day occurance type of thing. We'll hope anyway."

Yesterday, the severity of the injury was still unknown.

"They really don't know what it is," Hickman's roommate/teammate Porro said of Hickman's swollen ankle. "She's wearing a special wrap this weekend. She's waiting till practice on Monday to see how it feels. She might have to get a bone scan."

Hickman is one of the runners of the distance medley relay team, which will travel to Iowa for the Last Chance Qualifier next weekend. However, the relay is run by different runners so as not to use the same runners over and over again. There are lot of different combinations which can be used.

"We have pretty good depth in our team," Jordan said. "So if one person isn't 100 percent on we'll send another person. We have a little bit of flexibility because we do have such good depth."