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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Marquette Track and Field: MU expecting to fire on all cylinders

The Marquette track and field team travels to Notre Dame this weekend for the first time since it kicked off the indoor season at the Blue & Gold Invitational in December.

The Meyo Invitational has become a hallmark for fast times as athletes set their sights on qualifying for the NCAA Championships. Much further along in training and rolling in with a deeper squad means the Golden Eagles should fire on all cylinders when the first gun fires to mark the start of the first race.

At the beginning of the indoor season, Marquette was ranked 15th in the Great Lakes region. Heading into South Bend, the team holds the 13th position in the index, which is the highest it has been since 2010.

Much of that improvement can be attributed to the numerous Marquette records set and the 30 Big East qualifiers. Senior Tyler O’Brien and junior Jack Hackett have emerged as leaders on this team in the sprinting and distance events, respectively.

The last time O’Brien stepped on the track in South Bend he set a new school record in the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.75 seconds. The sprinting captain has high hopes and expectations for himself as he looks forward.

“I’m looking to best my own school record. The competition will be great there,” O’Brien said. “It’s been a process gearing up towards Big East. Hopefully the marks can start to drop within the next couple weeks and we can get ready for the conference. ”

Last weekend O’Brien completed the 200 in 21.93 seconds at the Bill Bergen Invitational, which is .18 off his personal best. He said he could have finished much faster and has been working on his block start in practice to open races quicker.

“At the last meet, I didn’t get out as hard as I should’ve and it probably cost me some pretty good times,” O’Brien said. “Hopefully, this week I’ll focus on getting out harder and just going with that.”

Pleased with his team’s performance as a whole, not much has surprised coach Bert Rogers about O’Brien’s hot start to the season.

“Tyler’s worked really hard to get where he’s at. I think we’re on track to put down some good performances this weekend and in a couple weeks at Big East.” Rogers said.

On the distance side of events, Hackett’s 3,000-meter run highlighted the weekend. The distance squad was not present when the team last visited Notre Dame. It is a fast track and will be interesting to note how it fares well for the longer distances.

“Iowa State had a 300 meter track. Notre Dame is just a little bit bigger, so it should be a pretty similar atmosphere.” Hackett said.

Hackett has a history with the track at Notre Dame. He won the 5,000-meter run in his first appearance in a Marquette uniform at the 2009 Blue & Gold Invitational. He ran the fifth fastest mile in school history at the Meyo Invitational that year, before recording the third best with a time of 4:07.38 at the Alex Wilson Invitational.

But it won’t just be Hackett gunning for the top spot this weekend.

“Our distance guys know we have to be up near the front of the pack to run fast. All of the racers at Notre Dame will be fast,” Hackett said.

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