From the start of the season, the focus of the Penn State women's indoor track team has been the same: win the Big Ten Championship, again. However, the team suffered a minor setback this weekend with a subpar performance at the non-scoring New Balance Collegiate Invitational in New York City.

"It wasn't our best," freshman sprinter Dominique Blake said. "We're capable of doing way, way better."

Even though the Nittany Lions did not perform as well as they expected, Blake said they would learn from their mistakes and regroup. Though the results were not typical of Penn State, a few bright spots could be extracted from the weekend.

With a fourth-place finish in the 4x400-meter relay, the youthful Penn State squad proved that it can compete with the big dogs of the track world. The team of freshmen Blake, Gayle Hunter, Shana Cox and sophomore Kamilah Salaam turned in a time of 3:49.90.

Making the performance look even more respectable was the fact that the Penn State team finished behind three track-and-field powerhouses: LSU, South Carolina and Stanford. Coming into the meet, those three were considered to be among the top 10 in college track and field.

Hunter, who missed most of the Penn State National Open because of tendonitis in her knee, returned to the track in full stride. In addition to participating in the 4x400 relay, Hunter also posted a strong performance in the long jump. Her mark of 19 feet, 9 inches earned her a fourth-place finish.

In addition, Stephanie Pezzullo finished third in the 800, posting a time of 2:13.36.

Once again, Penn State was well represented in the throwing events as junior Jennifer Leatherman placed third in the shot put with a season-best throw of 49 feet, 2 inches.

The meet was especially important for Cox and Blake, who both attended high school in the New York City area and were running on their home track. Each was looking forward to showing off their skills to their friends and family in attendance.

In the 200 preliminaries, Cox won her heat and finished 11th overall with a time of 24.20 seconds. Blake finished seventh in the 400 with a time of 55.09, behind runners that were mostly from either South Carolina or LSU.

Blake said that it was a nice experience to run in front of her friends, family and high school teammates again.

"The support there was really good," Blake said.