Last season, the Penn State women's indoor track team won its first ever Big Ten championship. Now, with the Penn State Relays, the first event of the 2005 season approaching tomorrow, the mindset of this year's team is simply to repeat the success of last season.

But how about accomplishing that goal without key components of last year's team? The idea does not even faze head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan in the least.

Despite the losses of five-time All-American jumper Chi Chi Aduba, two Big Ten champions in pole vaulter Sara Dougherty and thrower Ja'Nai O'Connor and especially 11-time All-American and Olympian Connie Moore to graduation, Alford-Sullivan is looking at this season with confidence. In fact, she sees the team recharged rather than rebuilding.

"We had a great senior class last year, but we knew they were going to be graduating at some point, so we've been recruiting, and we've got some very, very strong freshmen in our class that we look to step in and cover that point loss," Alford-Sullivan said.

"You can't replace someone like Connie Moore, but you hope that eventually these young kids step in and even out-do her down the road. That's always a goal."

These younger athletes, like red-shirt freshman sprinter Shana Cox, freshman sprinter and jumper Dominique Blake, distance runner Nicole Bohnsack and freshman sprinter, jumper and hurdler Gayle Hunter, all are expected to contribute to a solid group of upperclassmen, which includes NCAA qualifier thrower Kate Johnston and distance runner Molly Landreth.

Landreth is coming off another successful cross-country season in which she was named All-Big Ten for the second consecutive season.

Even with such a young team, Alford-Sullivan is not concerned about the pressure for the young athletes to perform well early, but more excited to see exactly what they can bring to the table in their first competition.

"They're talented kids that bring a lot of success in with them. They know how to be champions, and they know that we're trying to be Big Ten champions again," Alford-Sullivan said.

The first chance for the team to put that confident mentality to use will happen this weekend as Penn State kicks off its intercollegiate competition at the Penn State Relays on their home track. Fifteen teams will participate in the competition. The field includes Bucknell, Cornell, Frostburg, LaSalle, Lincoln, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Mount St. Mary's, Robert Morris, Rutgers, Slippery Rock, St. Francis, St. Joseph and Syracuse, with Cornell being Penn State's stiffest competition.

"[Cornell] has some very talented team members," Alford-Sullivan said. "They'll be tough. They always are."

While Alford-Sullivan isn't putting too much stock into this meet as a barometer for the season, she still feels that it will be a positive experience for the team.