With the outdoor spring season far more compact than the initial track season in the winter, the track and field teams need all the meet experience they can get before the championship portion of the season begins.
For the Massachusetts track and field teams, the UMass Invitational will be a meet of heightened expectations and heightened competition in preparation for the fast approaching Atlantic 10 championship meet.
“You always expect rust in the first meet of the season,” said UMass men’s coach Ken O’Brien. “Then a lot of the expectation is for that rust to be worn for some finer performances in the second meet.”
O’Brien also attributes a small portion of his expectations to the fact that this meet will be run on the UMass track facilities.
“Sometimes, though not always so, a home always bring some better performances too,” said O’Brien. “So our expectation levels are hopefully better, based on those two factors.”
For women’s coach Julie LaFreniere, expectations are high coming off the American International College Yellow Jacket Invite victory. She believes her returning runners from the indoor unit should be well prepared for the quick season ahead.
“The expectations of the returning kids is that we look at indoors as a springboard for the outdoor season,” said LaFreniere. “Since we finished [the indoor season] at the end of March, we’ve still been increasing and building on what they had throughout the indoor season. So I expect more from everybody for outdoor than I do for indoor.
“They should be stronger and faster, and jump farther,” she said.
According to LaFreniere, the heightened expectations come from both coach and competitor. Having already been through a season — in the case of cross country runners two seasons — the mentality is naturally to expect more, which is a mentality LaFreniere praises.
“Not only do we expect more, but I believe that they expect more from themselves,” she said. “And they want it. I like that attitude, and I like what I see in practices.”
As it is just the second meet of the season for the men’s squad, however, O’Brien will also use this meet experimentally for some of his younger, less experienced competitors.
“Their learning curve will be a little slower, I believe,” said O’Brien. “I certainly expect improvement from them. In some respects, we are entering them in a second event, so we have a better chance of finding a place for them to be productive. Some guys who ran one event the first week will move to another [event] this meet. That way, we can expect some broadening strength and versatility for the team.”
The UMass Invitational has been growing in competition since it was first established back in 2007. This year, there are 16 women’s teams competing along with 12 men’s squads.
Boston College highlights a competitive women’s field with a strong distance crew.
The Eagles’ top cross country harriers power them in the distance events. The group finished second in the Atlantic Coast Conference and Northeast regional championships, as well 12th at the NCAA National Championship.
Senior Jillian King leads the BC crew having recently posted a 4:19.74 1500-meter time, which was almost a full 19 seconds better than UMass’s Karen Roa, who collected a first-place at the Yellow Jacket Invite with a 4:38.13. King’s sister, Caroline, registered a 4:20.25 in the same event, while Madeline Wallace and Kathy O’Keefe also came through with impressive marks of 4:29.46 and 4:29.47, respectively.
LaFreniere also expects strong competition from a number of other schools including Holy Cross, Amherst College, Albany and Williams.
“Some of these Division III programs are actually quite strong,” said LaFreniere. “[These schools are] at the national level and can compete with some of the division one schools in the northeast.”
On the men’s side, O’Brien is looking to the size of the meet, not just the strength of the meet, for value. He likes the idea of there being a large variety of talent participating so everyone will have someone to go up against.
“The good thing about a meet like this is that there are a large number of teams,” said O’Brien. “It’s guaranteed that whoever [participates] in this meet will have a number of competitors to perform against at their ability. So it will be a good challenge for everybody, where there won’t be too many gaps in the competitive level.”
The UMass Invitational is a two-day even that starts at 11 a.m. on Friday and runs until 4 p.m. The meet starts back up again on Saturday, running all day at the UMass Track and Field facilities.
Jeffrey Okerman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_Okerman.
