Ball State track and field travels to Indiana Wesleyan on Friday to compete in the Polar Bear Invitational. However, the Cardinals are only sending five runners to the meet.
Because the team is small in this weekend's competition, head coach Brian Etelman is focusing more on individual scores opposed to the team score.
“The few distance girls that are running, some of them just need races and they need opportunities to get going competitively," Etelman said. "Everyone else is going to stay back and do like a mock meet."
Just like last weekend, the weather isn't doing the Cardinals any favors. This small squad will have to push through some weather conditions again that are not ideal. However, Etelman is not concerned.
“In some ways it holds us back, but honestly when you start getting to the end of outdoor season, you’ve got finals and graduation and the conference championship coming up," Etelman said. "A lot of those times it’s all that external stressors kind of exasperating into like whatever physical injury you may have. So in some ways it’s frustrating in March to maybe not be able to get done what you need to get done, but at the same time it almost keeps you fresh as we go in April and May.”
Overall, the thought behind sending a smaller group of runners to compete on Friday is to help prepare runners that need the experience for competitions down the road.
“It gives them an opportunity because maybe they didn’t have a great week last week," Etelman said. "You know, it’s no different than basketball where you have a bad two or three-game stretch and you need one game to get it out of your system. So the purpose of them competing on Friday is that we really want to give people an opportunity to step up and show us who is going to be that person that comes forward a little bit.”
The Cardinals will compete at 1 p.m. Friday at Indiana Wesleyan University.
Contact Olivia Adams with comments at omadams@bsu.edu.
Read More
Papa Yule spreads joy throughout Delaware and surrounding counties
By Hannah Amos / 3 days agoFor 3 years, Papa Yule has been serving Delaware County and surrounding areas as Santa Claus.
Yorktown falls to Pendleton Heights
By Zach Carter / 4 days agoThough Yorktown sophomore Olivia Conklin had 21 points, the Tigers fell to Pendleton Heights 69-50.
Delaware County Athlete of the Week nominees
By Staff Reports / 4 days agoHere are the Delaware County Athlete of the Week nominees from Monday, Dec. 16 to Saturday, Dec. 21.
