Michigan Intercollegiates await women's track team

Issue date: 1/30/09

By Anthony Fenech
Staff Reporter

The women's track team will compete at full strength today for its first scoring meet of the season.

The team will travel to Eastern Michigan for the Michigan Intercollegiates, which extends through Saturday. Featuring six of the state's seven Division I schools (Michigan State excluded), the event proves to be one of the toughest on the team's schedule.

"This is definitely a meet that we've been targeting all year," said head coach Karen Lutzke.

The meet includes some tough competition, including the University of Michigan, which is ranked No. 3 nationally. Western Michigan, which took last year's second-place finisher in the indoor MAC Championship, will compete, as well as Eastern Michigan, which Lutzke calls "A quickly improving team."

Oakland University and the University of Detroit-Mercy will also compete.

Lutzke said she will get a better feel for where the team is at after seeing them this weekend as a whole.

"We haven't had a full squad," she said. "Some people have competed one weekend, others have taken a week off here or there, so we don't have a true sense of where our team stands at this point until we've competed in one spot."

This will be the Chippewas first of two regular season scored meets on the year, but junior Erika Schroll says that although the format is different, the goal remains the same.

"Everybody wants to win regardless if it's scored or not," Schroll said. "The competition doesn't change and we need to keep steadily building up to the MAC meet."

Schroll, who set a personal best in the high jump last weekend at the Red Simmons Invitational 5 feet 9 1/4 inches, will be competing in the pentathlon for the first time this season, serving as a test run for the season-ending meet.

Lutzke said this weekend's competition couldn't have come at a better time.

"Right now is the perfect time to have a scored meet," she said. "We're getting a feel for where we're at and things are starting to click together. This is where we need to start moving. After this weekend, there are only four more weeks until the MAC and that's not really much time."

Following the Michigan Intercollegiates, the team will compete in three more meets - one of which is scored - before the Mid-American Championships on Feb. 27-28 at Kent State.

"Overall, I feel we're in the right place right now," Lutzke said. "But we'll find out when we compete this weekend."