It may be January, but inside the Multi-Sport Facility the men's indoor track and field team is just starting to heat up.

This weekend marks the beginning of the winter season in which the team will compete in up to seven meets and relays from now until March.

The Multi-Sport Facility will play host to four events this winter, including the Penn State Relays this Saturday, the Penn State National Open from Jan. 27-28, a tri-meet with UConn and Princeton on Feb. 4 and the Sykes-Sabok Challenge Cup to close out the regular season on Feb. 10-11.

Then beginning toward the end of February, the stakes bump up a notch. The Big Ten Championships will be held Feb. 26-27 on the campus of the University of Iowa. Penn State men's track coach Harry Groves said scoring at the Big Ten Championships is one of the most difficult feats in indoor track and field.

"The Big Ten is so good, they rank as one of the tops in the country," Groves said. "One year we finished fourth in the Big Ten and sixth in the country."

The Interscholastic Association of Amateur Athletics of America (IC4A) Championships will take place March 4-5 at Boston University. Finally, the season will conclude March 10-11 with the NCAA Championships being held at the University of Arkansas.

"Our objective is to be as good as we can be by the last meets of the season (the Big Ten, IC4A, and NCAA)," Groves said. You try and take your team from one point and get them to a higher point."

The team returns many veteran leaders, including five who placed in the top 10 in their respective events at last year's Big Ten Championships, as well as two members of the 4x400-meter relay team that finished second in the Big Ten.

Among the returnees are throwers Scott Vernon, Dane Miller and Steve Myers. Vernon finished second at Big Tens in the weight throw, while Miller and Myers placed sixth and 10th, respectively, in the shot put. This trio gives Penn State one of the top groups of throwers in the Big Ten, and their performance should greatly help the team's scoring.

In the jumping events, the Lions return Ryan Kleintop. Kleintop finished ninth in the triple jump at the Big Ten Championships. In the high jump, Tyler Fedeli returns after posting the third best result in the Big Ten during the season. They will both be trying to improve on those performances this winter.

On the track, Mark Miller returns this season to attempt to improve upon his seventh-place finish in the 600-meter last winter. Dan Mazzocco also returns after earning All-America honors during the cross country season.

Also returning are sprinters Ernie Terrell and Steve Morgan who comprised half of the 4x400 team that finished second in the Big Ten.

Terrell will be suiting up in the blue and white for the final time this season, as he runs out of eligibility after the winter and will not be able to compete in the spring. He is already the Penn State record holder in the 60-meter, and hopes to end his career on a high note.

These two seniors, along with fellow senior Alex Langan, who posted competitive times in the 60 and 200, will help the Lions compete in the sprinting events.

The results from the Blue-White meet also give reason for optimism. Many athletes posted competitive results. Vernon, Miller and Terrell all posted results that would have been top ten performances in the Big Ten last season.

Groves finally added that he is excited for this weekend and "can't wait and see who does what."