Marquette's men's and women's indoor track and field teams performed at peak quality in the Notre Dame Invitational. In the Golden Eagles' first taste of Big East competition, Marquette grabbed victories in three events and 15 participants earned conference championship qualifying marks during Friday's meet.

"I thought that we had a really good meet," said head coach Dave Uhrich. "It usually takes us a couple meets to get going. This was our third meet and I would say our best performance of the year. Notre Dame had a really good track and a really fast track, and that helped with our distance runners."

Junior Kristina Malin had an outstanding race in particular. In the first 500 meter dash of her athletic career, Malin qualified for the Big East Championships and set the school record at 1:14.86.

"I'm ecstatic considering I just set two school records two weeks in a row," Malin said. "That has to be one of my biggest accomplishments so far. I can't wait to keep doing better."

Malin's time of 1:35:25 in the 600 meter run at last weekend's Jack Johnson Minnesota Classic was also a school record.

"It was a good meet for us," Uhrich said. "It showed that we're starting to come around and the fact that we qualified so many people for the Big East showed that we're starting to get ready for the Championships."

Junior Michaela Courtney helped Marquette by annihilating opponents and taking first place in the 3,000 meter run. Courtney's finishing time of 9:35.68 qualified her provisionally for the National Championships.

"I'm happy about my performance on Friday," Courtney said. "I have a hard time pacing in long distance races. But I'm happy with my time and the fact that I qualified for Nationals. I wish that I had run faster, but there were a lot of people in the race and the track was bigger than what I was used to. That threw me off."

Senior Jon Shaffer also earned a first-place finish in the 500 meter dash with a time of 1:04.48.

Marquette athletes in all events performed well.

"The throwers had a good meet," Uhrich said. "The throwers are still working a lot on technique and a lot of the athletes are really young. There were several personal best performances, but a lot of them are still learning the event. That is going to take time."

Sophomore Jessica Ehlen earned second place and threw a distance of 15.89 meters.

Marquette will return to Notre Dame on Friday and Saturday to challenge rivals in the Meyo Invitational at the Loftus Sports Center.

"There was good competition, but not great," Uhrich said. "This upcoming weekend we will have a lot more competition. It will be tough. This meet was good practice."