When the majority of your meets are on the road, the numbers game begins to catch up to you. The 50-plus women on the Penn State women's outdoor track team, limited by restrictions on the number of entrants, don't all get to compete in every meet.

Last weekend, the Nittany Lions traveled to North Carolina State for the Raleigh Relays, but were only allowed to take 32 athletes along. This is a restriction set by the Big Ten for all of its track and field squads, not something that is set by the hosts or organizers of the meet. The coaching staff makes the decision each week on who will make the trip based on performance, fatigue and momentum.

The athletes who stayed in University Park last weekend ran in the 34th annual Jim Thorpe Invitational and took first place in six events, placing ahead of athletes from Lehigh and St. Francis, Pa. Despite running in a lower-profile event, the women who ran in it were happy to get back to competitive running.

"It was good to get out and get the wheels running," junior Lauren Clark said. "Outdoor [track] is completely different from indoor ... it was good to run."

Clark took first in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:21.84, finishing just ahead of teammate Marisol Solano, who took second, finishing at 2:22.54. Clark was relatively pleased with her performance.

"I didn't run great time-wise," Clark said. "But competition-wise I thought I did very well."

Other top performers at the Thorpe Invitational included freshman Amanda Copperthite, who won the 200- and 400-meter dashes with times of 25.38 and 58.06, respectively.

The Lions also got first-place finishes from junior Ja'nai O'Connor in the shot put, sophomore Colleen Connell in the 1,500-meter run and junior Maureen Thomas in the 3,000-meter run.

Penn State women's track and field coach Beth Alford-Sullivan is pleased that everyone on the team is getting an opportunity.

"It's nice to get everyone out there running," Alford-Sullivan said.

"We can only take a maximum of 32 athletes and sometimes we take less than that. Next weekend we'll take 25 athletes ... and only 14 the week after that."

This weekend at the University of Pennsylvania will be the Lions' only opportunity to run as many athletes as they want in the same meet.

In the future, however, the Lions will have meets similar to the Thorpe Invitational to ensure that the entire team gets a chance to run competitively.

The team is optimistic that a consistent practice schedule and involvement by the entire squad will benefit them throughout the season, regardless of which meets they run in.