Mountaineers to face six schools in Blue and Gold meet Friday

The West Virginia track and field team will be back at the Shell Building Friday for the Blue and Gold meet. This will be the last stop prior to the Big East Indoor championships held Friday afternoon.

WVU will face competition from Waynesburg, Geneva College, Westminster College, St. Vincent, Bethany College and Alderson-Broaddus College.

"We have a few more kids that we can hope we can qualify for the Big East Indoor Championships," said WVU head coach Sean Cleary. "This will also serve as a tune-up for our team as we are in the final preparations for the Big East."

The Blue and Gold meet will be able to be a very nice form of preparation for Cleary's bunch, especially being at home.

"Being at home is nice, being that we are so close to the Big East meet," Cleary said. "Having a nice little tune-up to keep us in a competitive frame of mind is important. Not having to be on the road will allow us to prepare and rest for next weekend."

Redshirt sophomore Chene Townsend, who competes in the 60-meter hurdles, hopes to improve her time before she prepares for the Big East Indoor championships.

"I hope for a better time Friday," Townsend said. "I've already qualified for the Big East, but I'm trying to improve my time in that event. I'm also running the 200-meter dash, and it would be nice qualify for the Big East championships in that as well."

Townsend, who equaled her personal best of 8.53 seconds last week at Penn State, is trying to work on the minor things at tomorrow's meet.

"I'm trying to fix minor things in my technique and trying to work on my speed," Townsend said. "It's the small things you do that wins races, so my focus is to work this week to fine-tune my technique."

WVU will look for strong finishes in order to feel best prepared for next weekend's championships.

"The overall team goal for the Big East Indoor championships is for everyone to go out and make it to the finals for each event and get points for the team," Townsend said. "If we make it to the final, it doesn't matter our placement, we'll still get points. It would be great if we can finish in the top three for each event we qualified for, and we'd have a chance to be Big East Indoor champions.

The action takes place at the Shell Building Friday at noon.