This past weekend, after 15 events, the Penn State men's outdoor track and field team finally overtook Princeton for first place in the USTCA Series Meet at the Nittany Lion Track. The Nittany Lions went on to increase their lead and finish ahead of Princeton 213.5 points to 189.5. The University of Pennsylvania came in third with 69 points.

It was the second straight year that the Lions had won the meet. Last year, Princeton also came in second, while Penn finished third.

In a meet that Penn State track and field coach Harry Groves said was billed as "the meet of the Big East," the score was tight until the end.

There were also four NCAA regional qualifying marks set on the track side, while more were set in the field events.

The meet took place on a sunny though breezy day and it was the first time this season that the Lions were competing in good conditions. They took advantage of that to put on some good performances. One of the best performances came in the toughest event of the day, the javelin, where three of the top 10 throwers in the nation competed. As a result, there were eight NCAA regional qualifying marks met in the event.

It was a seesaw event that saw the leaders change twice. Penn State's Brian Stumpf came in second with a throw of 231-03, qualifying for the regional competition in the javelin. Javelin throwers Matt Moyer (fifth place/207-1), Kyle Wintersteen (sixth/206-10) and Eric Dare (eighth/199-1) also met the mark.

"I think that Penn State has been traditionally strong in the javelin," Wintersteen said. "We pride ourselves on being competitive."

Also meeting qualifying marks were senior Chavous Nichols in the long jump (24-03) and the triple jump (51-01 Ã~). He placed first in both events. Lions co-captain Brian Derby put up his best performance so far this season, when he met two NCAA regional qualifying marks as he took second in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.30 seconds and won the 400-meter hurdles (51.18).

Senior Dian Diaz showed his versatility by winning the discus (165-07), coming second in the shot put (52-01 Ã~) and placing third in the hammer (182-8).

The Lions also did well in the relays, as they won the 4-by-100-meters with a team of Alex Langan, Chris Lolagne, Greg Miller and Diamond Woolford in a time of 41.38 seconds. In the 4-by-400-meter relay, Penn State came in second with a time of 3:19:10. In total, the Lions had five first-place, 10 second-place and six third-place finishes.

"We won the meet and that is what we wanted to do," Groves said. "It was great competition in weather as good as we can get in the Northeast."

Winning the meet was an important goal for the Lions.

"I think it will certainly give us a lot of momentum going into the bigger meets," Wintersteen said.

The Lions said they feel that the win, which was their second in as many weeks, shows that practicing and competing in the sometimes challenging weather of State College is actually good preparation.