With the season nearing its end, the ISU track and field team heads to the Arkansas Twilight Invitational this weekend for one of its last regular-season meets.

“We’re sending a pretty full squad to Arkansas, and we’re looking forward to hopefully getting some good weather,” said coach Corey Ihmels.

Several of the distance runners, including junior Kiel Uhl and sophomore Lisa Koll, will get the weekend off. Ihmels said those runners will focus on training until the Big 12 Track and Field Championships in two weeks. However, the team will still run a few of the distance runners at Arkansas over the weekend.

The Cyclones hope to qualify a few more athletes for NCAA regionals before the team heads to the conference championship meet.

“We still have some kids who are pretty close to regionally qualifying and showing up their event area before Big 12s.” Ihmels said. “We’re just hoping for some good competition in Arkansas and have an opportunity for kids to set things up and get ready for Big 12s.”

While a number of runners competed at the Drake Relays last week, several other athletes entered events at the Kip Janvrin Simpson College Open held last Friday in Indianola. Just like their teammates at Drake, the runners had to fight through the high winds and cold temperatures experienced around Iowa.

“Overall, we went over there and we did a good job competing and battling the conditions and ended up getting some good racing in,” said sprint coach Ronnie Williams.

Taking home the highest finish for the Cyclone runners was junior Eric Parker, who nabbed a victory in the 400-meter hurdles. Chris Ward, a sophomore out of Griswold, completed a one-two finish for the team, securing second with a time of 55.28 seconds. Freshman Bart Howard placed eighth in the event.

Capturing another high finish was Josh Lewis, who took second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Zach McFall finished a few places behind, grabbing sixth. Another highlight of the meet included Justin Peel’s first-place finish in his heat of the 100-meter dash. The junior went on to place sixth.

The top finisher for the women was freshman Myranda Casterline, who ended up fifth in the 100-meter hurdles. Ines Fischer grabbed sixth in the 400-meter hurdles, while Rachel Bell finished fifth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

Senior Stefan Tauber got the team going in the field events by taking second place in the long jump with a mark of 7.05 meters.

The Cyclone throwers put up a strong performance, as well, including three top-two finishes.

After a victory in the discus throw at the L.A. Twilight Invitational two weeks ago, Robbie Utterback followed up by winning his second victory of the season in the event. Luke Pinkelman took fourth.

Also contributing to the team’s big outing was Zac Brouillette, who provisionally qualified for the NCAA regionals in the hammer throw. He added to his success by placing second in the shot put.

Ihmels said the team is happy with the improvement the throwers have shown this season.

“The throwers have really come on,” Ihmels said. “They really haven’t had the opportunity to throw in great conditions. They didn’t even throw all their throws over the weekend, but they’re really beginning to make progress.”

Further good news for the Cyclones came when a number of the team’s recruits for next season had standout performances in the high school division of the Drake Relays.

Incoming freshman Devin Allbaugh of Pleasant Valley High School won the Drake Relays title in the 3,200-meter run and finished second in the 1,600-meter. Allbaugh was also part of the Pleasant Valley team that took first in the 4-by-800 relay.

Danielle Frere, a recruit for the women’s team out of Muscatine High School, captured a victory in the shot put, throwing for a distance of 14.70 meters. Callan Jacobson of Benton Community high school, also a recruit for the women, finished second in the 100-meter dash.

“We’re really excited about the recruiting class we have signed. I think we have a bright future. We are laying the groundwork for the future,” Ihmels said. “We’re excited about helping them make progress. We have a young squad and we don’t lose many people [next year],” Ihmels said.