February 16, 2001

Tracksters Host Robert Kane Invite

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The men’s and women’s track teams are set to compete at Barton Hall in the Robert Kane Invitationals this Saturday.

Seventeen teams are expected to visit Ithaca. Division I, II and III teams will participate. The University of Buffalo and University of Toronto are two of the stronger teams in this open invitational.

Different Kind of Meet

Unique for this meet is the number of events each individual athlete will compete in.

“Instead of normally competing in maybe two or three events, many of the middle and long distance runners will only compete in one event for the most part,” said men’s coach Nathan Taylor.

The weekend proceeding this is the regional heptagonal meets at Harvard, where the Big Red looks to pull out their best performances.

Strategy

Some of the strategy for the Robert Kane Invitational is directly set up for the more important heptagonals.

Taylor concluded that, “we are looking for all of our athletes to improve on their best race performances over the past year in this meet.”

The old adage of quality versus quantity is most definitely in effect this weekend.

Since this meet will not feature a team score, many of the specialists can exploit the competition by racing in their best events. Each participant can maximize and give it 100 percent in their prescribed event and not save anything for multiple events.

Finals for Some

For some of the Big Red, this is in fact their heptagonal meet. Not everyone will be competing in the championship event, so some will be taking advantage of this chance to shine. Included in this bunch is a group of post-graduate athletes looking for a taste of competition again.

“For some of our younger team members, this just gives them another chance to gain some more race experience,” said women’s coach Lou Duesing.

Finding Spots

Duesing added that, “some of the girls this Saturday are looking for a spot on the bus to heps, as we can only take a certain amount of athletes.”

This means that some of the events will have the Big Red running at full tilt as some try to vie for a trip to Boston.

No matter the outcome for this weekend, Duesing said that, “this team just got a good feel to it. They have worked hard all season in being competitive in conjunction with a strong work ethic.”

Archived article by Donald Lee