The Penn State men's track and field team needed little time to display how succesful its winter training has been going.

Hosting the Penn State Relays in State College on Saturday, the Lions competed along with 12 other teams at the Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track.

Consisting of mostly relays, the meet also featured individual events. Several Penn State relay teams and individuals came out with strong performances for an early January competition.

In the 4x55-meter shuttle hurdle, the Penn State group of Shawn Colligan, Chris Morrisey, Adam Stanowick, and Ron Jules captured the victory as well as the fastest time in Penn State Relays history. They finished in 29.32 seconds, lowering the mark set last year by the Nittany Lions.

On the distance side, the 4x1-mile relay team of Tyler McCandless, Teddy Quinn, John Mahoney, and Dan Mazzocco also garnered first place with a time of 17 minutes, 27.42 seconds.

Several other Lion relay teams -- the 4x400 meters, 4x800 meters, and sprint medley, achieved second place finishes for Penn State.

Scattered in-between relay events, the individual events saw numerous Lions gain high finishes.

In the high jump, Penn State's Ryan Fritz notched a victory with a jump of 6 feet, 11 inches.

"I'm pretty happy with my performance," Fritz said. "It was my first meet, and I jumped better than I did last year. I definitely feel good about it."

In another field event, a pair of Penn State shot putters finished one-two in the event.

Steve Myers garnered first place with a meet record of 56 feet and Dane Miller finished right behind with a throw of 54-10.75.

Jumpers Ryan Kleintop and Clarence Smith each received
runner-up finishes. Kleintop took
second in the long jump and Smith did the same in the triple jump.

Penn State pole vaulter John Vellenoweth placed second in the pole vault with a height of 15-3.

In the 3,000-meters, Penn State distance runner Patrick Murphy gained another second place finish for the team, clocking in at 8:48.68.

Even with all the solid times and marks achieved by the Lions on Saturday, the meet was more about gauging how winter training was going rather than earning the victory.

"The first meet was a great chance to shake our legs out from over the winter break and run against some good competition," Murphy said. "It's a good stepping stone for the rest of the year and it's something to build upon."

Using the smaller meets to make adjustments to training methods is common in track and field, and Saturday's Penn State Relays was no exception.

"You always want to win, but it's more about training and getting ready for the bigger meets," sprinter Alex Langan said.