After a tough season, the men's and women's indoor track and field teams switched to a more relaxed mindset at the Karl Schlender Invitational, which took place at Wisconsin-Whitewater.
"The Big East was the focal point of our indoor season, so this was more a meet for people who didn't go to that," said head coach Dave Uhrich. "We wanted something close and something that was a little more low key."
The Big East Championships took place the week before on Feb. 18 and 19. Although nerves sky-rocketed before the Big East, athletes remained calm and reserved at the Karl Schlender Invitational on Saturday.
"It was definitely a completely different atmosphere than at the Big East meet, but that's OK," Uhrich said. "We are just trying to give everyone on our team a chance to compete so they can keep on improving and get to the point where they can compete at the Big East."
Although the level of intensity and prestige at the meet was not a season high, Marquette athletes still performed at top quality and had good marks.
Sophomore Scott Mueller placed first in the mile run with a time of 4:21.65. Sophomore Scott Allen won the 3000-meter run and set a personal record at 9:05.74.
"I wanted to break nine minutes, but I didn't end up having enough competition," Allen said. "I still ran a good race though. Before, my best time in the 3000 meter run was 9:12 and on Saturday I ran a 9:05."
On the women's side, sophomore Jessica Ehlen claimed victory in shot put with a distance of 13.05 m and in weight throw with a toss of 16.59 m.
"We did have some people place high, but for us it wasn't as much about placing as much as it was about just competing," Uhrich said. "In track you can measure how fast you run, how far you throw, or how high you jump week by week. So we were just looking at having everybody progress. Our ultimate goal is to have everyone be competitive at the Big East level."
The Karl Schlender Invitational also provided athletes with one more chance to compete indoors before changing gears to concentrate on the outdoor track and field season.
"Now we will take a little bit of a break," Uhrich said. "We have about four weeks before our first outdoor meet. Some of the events will be different and the track will be different so we need to switch focus from indoor to outdoor."