Trackmen rise from cellar at Big Tens

The Penn State men's indoor track team crawled out of the cellar it occupied for the past two years at the Big Ten Championships this weekend at Purdue.

The Nittany Lions finished in eighth place with 51 points, 57 points behind champion Minnesota. Lion coach Harry Groves said he isn't disappointed with the eighth-place finish, considering the competition.

Thrower Neal McNutt was the only Lion crowned Big Ten champion in his event, the 35-pound weight throw. McNutt was ranked first going into this weekend's competition and his toss of 62-1 was good enough to remain on top.

The downside to McNutt's victory was the Lions didn't receive the 15 points for a first-place finish. This was the first year the conference recognized the event, but didn't allow the competition to count towards team scoring.

Groves said with the additional 15 points, the Lions would have finished in sixth place with 66 points.

Besides McNutt, other members had a successful two-day stint at Purdue. Runner Joe Loner was the defending indoor 800-meter champion and was going up against the defending 800-meter outdoor champion Bobby True from Illinois.

True beat Loner on the last turn and won the race with a time of 1 minute, 49.75 seconds. Loner crossed the line with a time of 1:50.12. It wasn't a complete loss for Loner, because his time was good enough to qualify for the NCAAs later this month.

Loner added he is looking forward to the next time the two meet in the outdoor championships for the 800-meters.

Along with Loner, John Whelan qualified for the NCAAs in the 55-meter high hurdles with his fourth-place finish of 7.31. Groves said he was pleased with Whelan's result but believes there is room for improvement.

"John hits a lot of hurdles," Groves said. "If he gets a clean flight of hurdles, he would be right in it."

Freshman sprinter Ben Karcz made the most of his first appearance at the Big Tens. Karcz finished third in the 600-meters with a time of 1:19.51, which is a new school record. Groves said he wasn't very surprised Karcz finished as well as he did.

"Ben took command against good guys," he said. "He knew he couldn't come from behind."

Karcz wasn't the only Lion to break a school record. Jaime Cook finished second in the heptathlon with 5,500 points, breaking his old school record of 5,440. Cook battled against Minnesota's Benjamin Jensen, who won the competition with 5,769 points.

Jumper John Gorham continued his strong results in the long jump, placing second behind champion Bashir Yamini from Iowa. Yamini won the event with a jump of 24-11 ¼ and Gorham leaped 24-6 ½.

The Lions will take this week to prepare for the Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America (IC4A) meet this weekend at Ithaca, N.Y. Groves said it's the oldest athletic association in the world.