The weekend was one of firsts for the Penn State men's track and field team.

The Big Ten Championships at Iowa marked the first time the Nittany Lions left State College in 2006, the first meet they ran on a flat track and the first time they finished anywhere but in first.

Penn State placed eighth out of 10 teams in Iowa City, finishing with 46.5 points, leaving the team 78 points behind the winner and six-time defending champion Wisconsin.

The Lions, who had won every scored meet they participated in before this weekend, were competing against the highest level of competition they had seen this year.

"Across the board it's gonna be better, guaranteed," Penn State runner Mark Miller said. "The Big Ten is one of the best conferences in the nation."

Stealing the show were Wisconsin's Chris Solinsky and Indiana's David Neville, both double winners. Solinsky posted automatic NCAA qualifying marks in both his wins, cruising to victory in the 3,000 and 5,000. Neville outdistanced the field convincingly in the 200 and 400.

Two more athletes automatically qualified for NCAA Championships in Iowa.

The Lions had three top-three finishes, but didn't win an event in the unfamiliar facility. Freshman Ryan Fritz was the top Nittany Lion finisher, placing second in the high jump with a leap of 7-0.25.

"I think Fritz really stepped it up. I don't think he could have done a better job against some high quality competition from Minnesota," Miller said, referring to the Golden Gophers' touted tandem of high jumpers. "Him splitting the two of them was fantastic."

Joining Fritz with top-three finishes were Miller, who finished third in the 800-meters with a time of 1:51.91, and Ron Jules, who took third in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.91 seconds.

The track at Penn State's Multi-Sport Facility, one of only two banked tracks in the Big Ten, is known to most in the collegiate track world as one of the nation's fastest. The Lions, running on flat turns for the first time this season, had to adjust quickly against runners who were acclimated to a flat track.

"We lowered [the track at the Multi-Sport Facility] gradually. We didn't lower it all the way, but we got it pretty low," Miller said. "It's always gonna be a tough transition, going from one of the fastest tracks in the nation to a flat track."

"We did pretty well overall. We were trained really well for a flat track," Alex Langan said, "[but] it's always gonna be harder, especially for bigger guys."

Langan was the team's best sprinter on the weekend, finishing fifth in the 60-meters and seventh in the 200-meters.

Fritz, who equaled his second-highest mark of the year, was joined in the high jump top 10 by teammate Tyler Fedeli. Fedeli cleared 6-8.25 on his way to a seventh-place finish.

In other field events, Scott Vernon's second-best effort of the season, 62-8.75, was good enough to place him fourth in the weight throw. Fellow thrower Steve Meyers was able to crack the top 10 in both the weight throw and the shot put.

The Lions scored twice in the heptathlon. Shawn Colligan won two of the heptathlon's seven events on his way to a fifth-place finish overall. His 4,826 points smashed his previous season high by over 500 points. In his first trip to Big Tens, Chris Morrisey also scored, posting an eighth-place finish in the event.