Falcons Travel East To Compete In Akron Invitational

The Bowling Green State University track and field team faces one last opportunity to prepare for the 2011 Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships this weekend when they travel to Akron, Ohio for the annual Akron Invitational.

The two-day meet, held on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 11-12), features a very strong set of competing teams.  Among the teams expected to participate are four teams ranked in the top 20 nationally -- No. 9 Auburn, No. 13 Arizona, No. 15 Oklahoma and No. 19 Penn State.  The men's side will feature five such teams.  Aside from Bowling Green and Akron, the MAC will be represented by Buffalo, Central Michigan and Kent State.

Events will be divided into two sections, Blue Division and Gold Invitational.  The Gold events feature the highest-rated athletes.

Festivities begin on Friday at 5:00 p.m. with the men's heptathlon.  The women's pentathlon follows, and the night is completed with the discus and the 5000m Gold Invitational races.

The meet resumes on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with Blue events.  The day's Gold events begin at 3:00 p.m.

One of the races to watch will be the 60m dash preliminary on Saturday.  Three Falcons compete in that event, highlighted by sophomore Jeanette Pettigrew, who earned one of the five best seeds after posting a 7.52 time in the event last weekend at Notre Dame.  Pettigrew will also be one of 11 runners to compete in the Gold version of the 200m dash.

Nicole Farr (one mile run) and Autumn Dettmann (3000m) will also participate in Gold-level events.  In Friday's 5000m race, three Falcons -- Abby Koch, Megan Kelsey and Taylor Stichter -- will run.

Two Falcons run in the 60m hurdle preliminary race, including Rachel Doughty.  Doughty recently set a career-best time of 8.94 seconds in the event, and that registers as one of the ten best seed times in the 34-runner field.

Tatijana Jacobson and Brittani McNeal are set to compete in Gold-level field events, and the Orange and Brown will also field a team in the top 4x400 race.

The complete field can be found HERE.

Complete results and a full recap will be available after the conclusion of action on both days.  However, if you cannot wait for that, then you can take advantage of live stats and live video.  The live stats link is HERE, while live video is available HERE.