The Penn State men's track and field team continued its stretch of home meets in January as it played host to the Penn State Open at Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track on Saturday.

The Lions faced off against nine other schools including St. Augustine, the reigning Division II Indoor Champions. The Lions are hoping to use the meet's results as a springboard into next weekend's highly competitive Penn State National Open.

"It's kind of an interesting weekend for us because it is a little bit of a prep up for next weekend. Yet there was a lot of good competition here," Penn State coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "We were a little bit flat overall across the board, if you went from one event to the last event, which is a result of training hard, working hard and racing hard."

Lions sprinter Ron Jules got Penn State off to a good start with his victory in the 60-meter hurdles.

Jules had to overcome an early stumble when he hit one of the hurdles. However, Jules composed himself and finished the race strong by coming from behind and taking the victory with a body lean at the finish line. Jules time of 8.10 seconds gave him the win, just .01 faster than Jermaine Baker of St. Augustine.

"I felt like I had a smooth race, then the fourth hurdle came along and I hit it. I felt like I was going to break away, but since I hit the hurdle it slowed me down a little bit," Jules said. "I just cleared my mind and just tried to finished strong.

"I knew since I hit the hurdle, that I was down a little bit. I just picked it up at the end and did the lean and I was like 'Yes.' "

The Lions struggled to even sniff the top spots in any of the sprinting events. St. Augustine, led by the 2004 United States men's Olympic track and field head coach, George Williams, dominated all of the sprinting events.

In the 500-meter dash, Mark Miller posted a time 1:03.77 to claim victory. Teammate Caleb Hood finished less than a second behind and took runner-up.

In the field, Ryan Kleintop won the long jump with a leap of 22 feet-9 inches. Clarence Smith took second in the triple jump with a mark of 48-4.75, and Ryan Fritz finished tied for runner-up in the high jump.

Steve Meyers and Dane Miller owned the shot put for the Lions. Meyers won the event with a toss of 55-5, and Miller took home third with a throw 53-09.

The Lions had to make a transition from the Penn State Relays, which is geared mostly toward a mixture of relays, to the more traditional style of open competition with regular events.

"People stepped into open events, so they ran either their primary event or something very similar. They are getting racing experience." Alford-Sullivan said.

"It's a step forward in a lot of ways, but we'll be crisper and cleaner next weekend."