Men against boys is not a fair fight.

Two weeks ago the Penn State men's track and field team was the "men," while the competition was the "boys." The result was that the Lions finished in first place.

Saturday the Lions went up against "men" when they went up against Big Ten competition at the Indiana Tri-Meet in Bloomington, Ind. They got a small sample of the Big Ten competition they will face at the Big Ten Championships.

The result was the Lions finished second overall with 104.50 points. Host Indiana took first place with 132.50 points and Ohio State came in third with 82 points.

The Lions and their coach Harry Groves had repeatedly emphasized last week that the Big Ten competition was one of the best conferences in the nation.

"That's the good thing," Groves said. "Big Ten competition is always good and in order to win a meet, you have to be hitting on everything."

The team felt that this was a satisfactory performance as this was the first Big Ten meet that they have had this season.

"We all did well," senior Ryan Olkowski said, "and as a result some things went well."

The second place finish was also seen as a learning experience for the team.

"It was great so that the freshmen don't think we are the greatest in the world," Olkowski said.

Groves also felt that it was a good experience for the Big Ten teams the Lions will face this year.

Even though the Lions finished second, Groves felt that they were as good as Indiana and that the only difference at this meet was that Indiana had more first and second place finishes than the Lions.

The team got first place finishes from captain Dorian Lowe, who led the team with an NCAA provisional qualifying toss of 19.09 meters in the 35-pound weight throw.

Lowe called winning his event "bitter-sweet" as his first priority is to help the team to win the meet.

"The number one thing is for us is to win a Big Ten championship," Lowe said, "since we haven't done it before."

Other first place finishes for the Lions came from senior Steve Janci in the 600 meters and Olkowski won the long jump with a jump of 7.39 meters in a thrilling event.

Freshman Matt Lincoln had his second first place finish in two meets, when he won the 800 meters with a time of 1:51:68.