The 4 x 400-meter relay team with four-time All-American Shana Cox will lead the seven qualifiers of the Penn State women's indoor track team at the NCAA championships this weekend.

The Nittany Lions will run today and tomorrow against the top collegiate qualifiers from across the nation at the Randal Tyson Track Center on the campus of the University of Arkansas, with All-American status and national rankings up for grabs.

Ranked No. 17 in the trackwire.com standings and No. 14 in the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association poll, the Lions will try to improve on Penn State's best-ever national ranking of No. 13.

This year's Big Ten champions, the No. 4 ranked 4 x 400-meter relay team of Cox, Dominique Blake, Briene Simmons and Aleesha Barber qualified to return to the national championships for the second year in a row with a time of three minutes, 34.7 seconds. The experience gained during last year's meet will be vital to continuing their success at the national level.

"It's very important that they were here last year," Penn State head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "This year, they're back and they're ranked much higher and they're on a mission to really get a piece of things. It's a different mindset than they've had before."

Cox and Simmons will each compete in three events. Cox will run the 400-meter race ranked No. 4 in the nation with a career best time of 52.31 seconds. Simmons goes into the 800-meter event ranked No. 19 with a time of two minutes, 6.53 seconds. Cox and Simmons are also members of the distance medley relay team with Megan Hutchinson and Bridget Franek.

Franek will also run in the one-mile event after qualifying during her rookie campaign.

Scoring points will be difficult at the national meet where the top eight finishers in each event score points and earn All-American honors.

"It's never easy here, that's why they call it the national championship," Alford-Sullivan said. "If we can get them into the finals and score a few points, that's a tremendous thing."