'It's all about the performance' for track

Red-shirt junior Williams and red-shirt freshman Pottinger compete in the 110-meter hurdles Saturday afternoon at O'Brien Stadium. (Jordan Boner / The Daily Eastern News)

Capturing a team title is never easy for a track and field team.

A team's athletes have to be healthy and better than the other competitors.

A team has to have the ability to pick up points in almost all
events or be stacked in a certain event.

While the Eastern track and field teams are noted for their many Ohio Valley Conference Championships, this weekend the Panthers will try to attain Western Illinois' Lee Calhoun Invitational titles for the second year in row.

The men's and women's teams both won teams titles last season and also in 2007.

Competition starts today at 3 p.m. for throwing events and 4:30 p.m. for running events.

The competition continues on Saturday at 9 a.m. for throwing events and 11 a.m. for running events.

"You gotta go out there and compete," Eastern head coach Tom Akers said. "That's one of the things I think our kids have been doing week in and week out. Whether we win the Lee Calhoun Invitational or not, it is not important at this point in time. Our sights are set on preparing the kids and preparing our team for the OVC Championships."

The meet will be Eastern's first outdoor meet away from Charleston as the Panthers will compete in Macomb.

"Hopefully, we have some good weather like we have been for the past couple of weeks," Akers said.

Western Illinois, Iowa, Marquette, Bradley, Illinois State, Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne and Chicago State are some of the teams competing.

"You're going to find some events this weekend that we don't have very many people competing if any," Akers said. "Some other events are really loaded up. Right now, it's about performance. Hopefully, we'll have some good conditions to get some good performances."

Some of those good performances were notched last weekend
at Big Blue Classic at O'Brien Field.

The OVC recognized this and awarded three Eastern athletes OVC honors earlier this week.

Junior Darren Patterson was named OVC Male Track Athlete of the Week. Senior Kandace Arnold was named the OVC Female Field Athlete of the Week.

This is the second straight honor for Arnold during the outdoor season. Senior Shawana Smith named was named the OVC Female Track Athlete of the Week.

Around the league

The Austin Peay women's team, both Eastern Kentucky teams will compete at Tennessee Sea Relays this weekend.

The Murray State women's team, Jacksonville State women's team and both Southeast Missouri teams will travel to the Ole Miss Invite on Saturday and Sunday.

The Tennessee Tech women's team, the Tennessee State teams will be competing at TSU. The Morehead State teams are traveling to Miami of Ohio.

Kevin Murphy can be reached at 581-7944 or kjmurphy@eiu.edu