Once again Eastern’s indoor Track and Field teams will go on the road to the state of Indiana. This time it will be traveling all the way to South Bend, home of Notre Dame and its Meyo Invite this weekend.

The two-day meet will be held in the Loftus Sports Center at Notre Dame with field events starting at 2:30 p.m. Friday and running events start at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday.

Now nearing the end of the season for Eastern indoor track and field continuing its recent high level of performance is critical. Some of the teams that Eastern faced off against last year and will be included this year are Indiana, Mississippi, Michigan State, Western Kentucky, Purdue, Minnesota, Toledo, DePaul, Illinois and Central Michigan, to list just some of the large pool of competition.

The Panthers have had some success this season, but this will be their first major meet of the season. The training has been tough for Eastern in the last few weeks and having this meet at this point in the season is a good place to see where they are at.

Eastern track and field will look to build upon their successes from last week’s Indiana Relays where there were nine top 10 members in their events on day one and then on day two there were even more Eastern athletes that won in its events and earned personal bests.

In total there were five members on the track team that set new personal bests and slid into the Eastern Track and Field record books. Those included were junior hurdler Stephanie Dominguez, now sixth all-time in the 600-meter run with a time of 1:37.40. Then senior distance runner Ruth Garippo increased her spot to third all-time on the 3000-meter run list with a time of 9:56.98.

Senior distance runner Julie James set a new best and Eastern’s fifth all-time time in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:12.30. Also junior sprinter Darneisha Spann set the sixth best time in Eastern history in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.6.

Finally, senior Riley McInerney continued his dominance in the mile as he set a new personal best and fifth in Eastern history with a time of 4:05.81.

The next meet for the team will be Friday Feb. 10 at Grand Valley State’s “Big Meet” in Michigan.

Alex Hartman can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]