With three of the first four home track meets being comprised primarily of teams at the Division II, Division III and junior college level, this weekend’s ISU Classic will be a definite test to see how the Cyclones fare against some of the nation’s top Division I talent.

The Cyclones will host nine men’s teams ranked in the top 50 nationally, led by the No. 3 Florida Gators and Big 12 foe No. 6 Nebraska. Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State and Oklahoma will join Nebraska as the Big 12 constituents at the Lied Recreation Athletic Center this weekend.

“It’s another step up in competition to see as a team where we are at, hopefully we can get some things accomplished and we can have some confidence going into the conference meet,” said track and field coach Corey Ihmels.

After sitting out top distance runners Guor Marial, Hillary Bor, Yonas Mebrahtu and Kiel Uhl last weekend, Ihmels believes that group should reach NCAA provisional qualifying standards this weekend, despite a few injuries that have arisen this week.

“We’re a little bit banged up with a couple of guys but that mainly has to do with the weather we are dealing with outside but I think we are still in a good spot,” Ihmels said.

One of the distance runners nursing a foot injury is senior Kiel Uhl.

On Tuesday, Uhl was only 75 percent sure that he would be competing this weekend in the same meet that he reached his NCAA provisional qualifying time in last season.

“We’re not for sure if I’m going to race yet, but if I do, I want to run better than I did last year and try to run under 14 minutes,” Uhl said.

Uhl needs to run the 5,000-meter in 14:10:00 in order to reach his provisional qualifying time.

The men’s throwers were two places away from tying the women’s first through fifth place sweep in the weight throw last weekend as junior Josh Koglin, junior Robbie Utterback and sophomore Mike Zika finished second, third and fourth place respectively.

“They have been competitive every week so I expect them to step up to the competition,” coach Grant Wall said.

Wall’s group of men throwers are primarily weight throwers in the indoor season, but Wall will send out two shot putters this weekend, freshmen Daniel Swarbrick and Anthony Bell who will try and chase the nation’s top ranked shot putter, Arizona State senior Ryan Whiting.

The most notable member of the men’s sprints and hurdles group that was held out last week was sophomore Ian Warner who is ranked No. 32 in the nation in the 60-meter dash after he ran the race in 6.72 seconds at the Bill Bergan Invitational two weeks ago. Warner is expected to compete once again this weekend in the 60-meter dash as he chases after the NCAA provisional qualifying time of 6.71 seconds.

Senior hurdler Eric Parker hopes that this weekend will be the first time this season he can break the eight second barrier in the 60-meter hurdles. Parker, whose personal record is 7.94 seconds, also hopes to rebound after a disappointing disqualification in last weekend’s Cyclone Open. After turning in the fastest qualifying time — 8.08 seconds — Parker false started in the restart of the 60-meter hurdles final, causing the disqualification.

“With age and with experience you learn to let those things go,” Parker said. “If [the disqualification] had happened this next week at the Classic obviously I would have been a bit more disappointed and upset.”

This season, Parker has been dealing with hamstring problems and also having to balance his training schedule with his required student teaching for his degree in elementary education. Despite his setbacks, Parker is confident he can compete well amongst the talented group of competitors which includes the nation’s top-ranked 60-meter hurdler, Oklahoma junior Ronnie Ash.

“I’m an athlete that strives for tough competition to challenge myself and the ability of my body,” Parker said. “With the right conditions, there is no reason I can’t [meet the NCAA provisional qualifying time] this week.”

The meet will begin 12:30 p.m. Thursday with the beginning of the men’s heptathlon and women’s pentathlon and continue through Saturday at the Lied Recreation Athletic Center.