Trackmen look to keep rolling

By MATT WONG
Collegian Staff Writer

After an impressive start, the Penn State men's indoor track team will head to Lewisburg for the Bucknell-Hershey Relays today and tomorrow.

The Nittany Lions opened the season last weekend with a win at the West Virginia Intercollegiate meet, where they outscored their competition by a hefty margin.

Penn State coach Harry Groves said his team will look to use today's meet to focus on relays.

"We want to make some progress from last week," he said.

Groves, who takes pride in his team being strong overall rather than a team just strong at sprints, long distance or field events, looks to use this meet to improve upon this balance.

"We want to be as balanced as we can be," he said. "We want to keep everyone up on each event."

Junior George Audu, who led the Lions last week by winning three events, including a career best in the long jump, is not expected to compete in the long jump this week. Already having qualified for nationals in the long jump with his leap of 25-8¼ feet, Audu said he wants to save his jumps and focus on other areas.

Audu, who will be running in the 4x400 relay and the sprint medley relay, said he just wants to concentrate on sprints and relays at this meet.

There will be 14 collegiate teams present for the two-day event, including Bucknell, James Madison, Morgan State and Temple.

Last year at the Bucknell-Hershey Relays, the Penn State impressed as their sprint medley relay team broke a 20-year-old school record and their 4x400 relay team was named Outstanding Relay Team of the meet. In addition, senior John Gorham took home honors as Outstanding Field Athlete of the meet.

Sponsored by Hershey, all competing teams this weekend will receive boxes of chocolate bars, a treat that has made Penn State's success in the past even sweeter.

But for Audu, motivation is not wrapped in a candy bar.

"Motivation is seeing the team do well," Audu said.

And the team has big expectations for this season.

"This year we have a very young team with a lot of potential," Audu said. "I believe we can still pull through a great season because we're operating well."

Although this meet will not be scored collectively, the team obviously will not be taking it lightly, Audu said.

"We're going in there to win."