It is another busy weekend for the Iowa State women’s track and field team.

Once again, the team will split up, sending one group of athletes to the Kansas Relays, while the remainder of the team competes in the Mount Sac Relays in Walnut, Calif.

The distance runners and throwers will comprise the group competing at Mount Sac, but the throwers will be taking on more than that through the long weekend.

Assistant coach John Dagata and his throwers will compete at Mount Sac on Thursday, before moving on to the Brian Clay Invite and Long Beach Invitational to close out the weekend.

“I’m looking for people to improve and really starting to see the Big 12-type intensity this weekend,” Dagata said. “We’re definitely ready for some competition. We had a decent weekend last weekend and now we’ve got to get it going. We’ve got to get ready to do what we need to do in the Big 12 [Championships].”

The throws group will look to sophomore Britta Christofferson and freshman Danielle Frere to follow up their performances from last weekend. Christofferson took second place in both the shot put and hammer throw competitions, while Frere won the shot put with a throw of 48-feet-eight-inches, a personal best.

Dagata said the competition at Mount Sac will be much more difficult than it was last weekend, and  it will be harder for his group to see similar results. The workload for the throws group will also be increased this weekend because they are slated to compete in three different meets.

“This is a good chance to get a lot of meets in a short amount of time,” Christofferson said.  “We really want to get our marks up, so we’re really looking forward to this weekend.”

Joining the throwers will be a small group of women’s distance runners, including Paige Ties, Meaghan Nelson and Betsy Saina who will all be competing in the 5,000-meter run.

There are two notable absences from the women’s group, though, as both Grace Kemmey and Lisa Koll will not be competing once again. Kemmey has not run since the Stanford Invitational in late March, while Koll will wait until next weekend to make her season debut.

For the jumpers and sprinters, the Kansas Relays will provide a chance to compete in a big-meet atmosphere. Assistant coach Nate Wiens expressed this to his group by calling the Kansas Relays “the Drake Relays of Kansas.”

“We’ve got to start taking care of business,” Wiens said. “It’s just a different level of competition. It’s just one more step to prepare them for Regionals and Nationals.”

Wiens also said in a team meeting Wednesday that his athletes should start their “flow of progression” this weekend, and start taking strides toward the Big 12 Championships.

Junior Lashawn Wright echoed those sentiments by saying her goal for the weekend was a 23.5 in the 200-meter dash. Her current personal best in the event is the time of 23.94 seconds she clocked last weekend.

“Everything will have to happen right for that to happen,” Wiens said about his star sprinter’s goal. “But the good thing about Lashawn is she always comes ready to run.”

Wright said that her mindset will not change when she toes the line this weekend looking for her ideal time.

“I don’t think about anybody else,” Wright said. “I know I have to go out there and work as hard as I can. It’s really nerve-wracking when you want to hit a certain goal, but I feel like my training has been going well, so I feel like I’m ready for it.”

Outside of Wright, freshman Kianna Elahi will try to continue her impressive run in the 400-meter hurdles, while junior Monique Hawkins will be looking to build off of her surprising start in the 400-meter dash.

“We’ve got a few key individuals that we’re really banking on to come out and really get some things done,” Wiens said.

“We’re going in there to prove a point, and we’re going to take everything we can out of there.”