Golden Eagles Prepared For BIG EAST Championships

April 30, 2009

Coach Rogers and N. Byom WMUR Podcast

MILWAUKEE-- The Marquette University track and field squad will return to action Friday at the BIG EAST Outdoor Championships in Villanova, Pa. Thirty-eight Marquette student-athletes will participate in 26 events at the three-day long meet, which will run from Friday morning until its conclusion Sunday afternoon.

"If we compete to the best of our ability, the points and the performances all should fall into place," said head coach Bert Rogers. "I think they are ready to have a good meet. We have some thoughts and ideas on that on how to accomplish that, but if we get the performances that were expecting then everything should fall in line."

The decathlon and heptathlon will be the only events competed on Friday and Marquette will have one participant in freshman Lauren Benjamin (heptathlon), who has also qualified to compete in the javelin on Saturday at noon.

Events begin on Friday with the 100-meter dash of the decathlon and will continue through the conclusion of the decathlon's 400 meters at 4:30 p.m. ET. On Saturday, competition will resume at 9 a.m. with the 110-meter hurdles of the decathlon and finish with the running of the men's 10,000 meters, which will include junior Brice Cleland, at 6:25 p.m.

Sunday's festivities will begin with the women's 4x100-meter relay and finish with the awards ceremony, following the running of the men's 4x400 relay.

Seniors Jessica Ehlen, Elizabeth Wilkie, Tom Cassady, Michael Heim, Mark Kopecki, Scott Mueller and Nick Van Deraa will all be competing in their final BIG EAST meets. Mueller and Van Deraa each sit second in MU history in their respective events with Mueller 20 seconds shy of former all-American Keith Hanson's time of 13:46.72 in the 5,000 meters and Van Deraa six inches short of assistant coach Zach Pawlowski's mark of 15 feet, 7 inches in the pole vault.

Three Golden Eagles, juniors Jayne Grebinski in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and Erynn James in the high jump, along with Ehlen in the hammer throw have also qualified for the NCAA Mideast Regional, hosted by the University of Louisville, on May 29-30.

The 2009 BIG EAST Outdoor Track and Field Championships will be streamed live on BIGEAST.tv from Jumbo Elliott Track on the campus of Villanova University. BIGEAST.tv is BIG EAST's online home for live and on-demand streaming audio and video.

BIGEAST.tv will have access to the Wavecam as part of its production. Ed Dougherty, an engineering professor at Villanova who invented the patent pending Wavecam, will be implementing the camera outdoors for the first time. Wavecam is an aerial remotely controlled camera system and was successfully used last basketball season for many of Villanova's men's and women's home games. It will be used as one of two different camera angles. The Wavecam will give users dynamic aerial views of events on the track and in the field.

Fans have two ways to subscribe to watch the championships live on BIGEAST.tv:

Sign up for the Outdoor Track & Field Championship package to gain access to both games for a one-time low price of $9.95. Sign up for a recurring monthly subscription, which gives fans access to all BIGEAST.tv premium content for 30 days, for $9.95.

Fans can purchase exclusive photos from the 2009 Outdoor Track & Field Championships by visiting the BIG EAST's new online photo store, serviced by Replay Photos. For live results, recaps, highlights and more, fans should visit Outdoor Track & Field Championship Central.