Jared Lewis and the rest of the ISU men’s track program members are excited.

Lewis is coming off his stellar last indoor season, which saw the junior from Denver finish second in the conference in the 60-meter dash and run on a 4-by-400 meter relay team that qualified for nationals.

“Last year I had a good indoor season. I want to improve my status on that,” Lewis said. “Hopefully, this year I can do that. My goals are pretty high. I want to place high in the Big 12.”

Like everyone involved with the Cyclone track program, Lewis has had to endure a great deal of change, with a completely new coaching staff in place for the upcoming year. That change, however, has left Lewis and the rest of the team excited for the upcoming year.

“I think we are optimistic,” Lewis said. “Anytime there is something new, you kind of have expectations and are kind of excited to see how things are going to turn out. So I think everybody is excited.”

New head coach Corey Ihmels will look to Lewis to lead a very solid sprint crew.

“Someone that sticks out is Jared Lewis,” Ihmels said. “He has been a leader in the group all fall. He was second indoors for us last year in the Big 12 and is going to do a great job.”

Lewis started out his season last Friday with a sixth-place finish in the 200-meter dash at the Arkansas Invitational.

With Lewis leading the sprinting core, Ihmels will look at Kiel Uhl, Guor Majak and newcomer Hillary Bor to lead the distance crew. The distance runners are coming off a very strong cross country season during which they were consistently ranked among the top 25 and qualified for nationals.

The season ended on a sour note, however, with a disappointing finish in the national meet, coming in 30th. The team is using the disappointment as motivation heading into the new season.

“After we came back from nationals, everyone was very disappointed,” Bor said. “So we are looking forward to getting on the track.”

Ihmels has had a great deal of work to do – constructing a new coaching staff from scratch, taking over both the men’s and women’s teams and starting a new era in the track program’s history.

“We have a rich tradition here at ISU,” Ihmels said. “One thing that was important for me was to have good continuity with the staff – that staff that had a lot of high energy and that was excited and was willing to work hard and wants to be here.

“I think we have accomplished that with the staff. We are a young staff, and everyone really wants to be here.”

The Cyclones continue their season on Saturday at the Northern Iowa Invitational in Cedar Falls. Events start at 10 a.m.