The Penn State National Open track meet on Friday and Saturday was an opportunity for the men's track team to compete against top teams such as Tennessee, Miami, Villanova and Georgetown at the Multi-Sports Complex, and gain an early view of the upcoming season.

The open format of the meet allowed the members of the track teams to compete individually, without the team scoring that is associated with other track meets such as the Big Ten Championships.

"In a meet like this, that's so big, you don't end up winning a whole bunch of things, but you shouldn't," Penn State coach Harry Groves said. "What I meant was, if you win most of the time, you're either in a lousy league or you're cheating."

There were several standouts on the Penn State team, including the 400-meter runners and the 4 x 400-meter relay team, 35-pound weight throwers and distance runners, as well.

The 4 x 400-meter relay team of seniors Jaret Campisi and Chris Lolagne with juniors Steve Morgan and Ernie Terrell came in first with a time of 3:13.11, just barely edging out Tennessee by 54-hundredths of a second.

"Three-thirteen is not a great time for those guys," Groves said.

"But it was a highly competitive race with a lot of bumping and hitting and that knocked the time all to heck."

Members of the relay team also excelled in individual events such as the 400-meter dash.

Terrell and Campisi finished first and second, respectively, in the 400-meter dash with times of 47:40 and 47:54, respectively.

Morgan also took fourth in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:04.73.

The 35-pound weight throw event was also a strong one for Penn State as the team had three of the top five distance throws.

Junior Scott Vernon finished first with a distance of 19.54 meters that is a provisional qualifying distance for the NCAA Championships.

Senior Aaron Ross and sophomore Jon Hart came in second and fifth in the weight throw with distances of 18.56 meters and 16.98 meters.

"We kind of monopolized the event," Groves said.

Junior Matt Lincoln finished the mile race in second place with a time of 4:04.68, a provisional qualifying time for the NCAA Tournament.

All of the top-10 times were within seven seconds of each other in one of the closest events of the meet.

"There probably hasn't been a race that good with that much talent in it in the whole state, ever," Groves said. "Matt ran a great race, but he lost. He's coming off a bit of an injury that we couldn't practice so I was happy that he finished as well as he did."

The meet gave members of the team reason to look forward to later meets and build on their finishes this weekend.

"I think the meet went really well. We had a lot of guys step up and show a lot of depth on the team," Lolagne said. "There's a lot to look forward in the next couple weeks, especially with team scoring meets coming up."