The ISU women’s track team will kick off its official season this Friday and Saturday with the Iowa State Open at the Lied Recreation Athletic Facility.

Coaches and athletes alike are excited to see what the season holds.

“They all have big goals of what we can do at the conference level this year and at the national level,” said assistant coach Travis Hartke.

With confidence that his athletes will perform well this weekend, coach Corey Ihmels said he is looking for something a little different this weekend.

“We want to keep everybody healthy,” Ihmels said. “That’s the main thing. [We want to] get things accomplished and keep everybody healthy. We’ll probably have a couple surprises, but I don’t expect to come out of here with any national qualifiers.”

Hartke said it was just the opener, but he’s excited about how far the teams have come training-wise.

“For the first time, not only in the distance group, we’ve really come along as an entire group, both men and the women,” Hartke said. “We’ve gotten to a point where our entire team can do really big things.”

Runners and throwers are focused on what they need to accomplish this weekend in order to see progress.

“Personally, I was hoping to run to my standards, setting a goal time and hit it around there,” said sophomore Colleen Riley.

Riley said that keeping in contact with teammates during break really helped her stay focused and motivated for the upcoming season.

Thrower Danielle Frere said she expects big things for the throws team this weekend.

“I want us to take top honors in everything. Nobody is going to come in here and beat us,” Frere said. “We should be able to take the top four, if not the top five sports.”

Ihmels said this weekend’s home opener focuses down to a couple main points.

“As long as we see progress and come out of it healthy and feel good about where we’re at, we’ll be able to make some progress down the road,” Ihmels said.