A quiet confidence surrounds the men’s track 4×400-meter relay team as it turns its attention to the outdoor season beginning this weekend.

After finishing 10th on March 10 at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., the team of Elijah Braimah, Jared Graham, Jared Lewis and Tony Stanfield hopes to take the experience and confidence outdoors.

“I think it’s going to be good now because we know we’re a top-five team, we’ve ran with them, we know that we can do it,” Graham said.

Coach Steve Lynn said the team had the goal of being All-Americans, and although they weren’t able to achieve it indoors, they now know what it takes.

“It motivates us that much more for outdoors, there’s no question about it,” Lynn said. “That’s one notch [All-American] that we want to add that we didn’t quite get to. They knew they belonged there, and they ran really solid, but every one of them felt like they could do just a little bit more – and we’ll do that. Now it starts as a totally different game outdoors.”

The team time of 3 minutes, 9.03 seconds at nationals was slower than the school record time of 3:07.39 the team ran to get there.

Lynn said running on the unfamiliar Arkansas track was one of the major factors hindering the team. Arkansas’ track is 200 meters and banked, as opposed to the 300-meter flat track in the Lied Recreation Athletic Center the runners are used to. The difference led to Graham waiting longer than normal on the third leg to start his sprint at the end, and Lewis losing his balance on the final leg to give up the lead in their heat.

“Inexperience on that size track hurt us on the last two guys,” Lynn said. ” We’ve ran one race on that size of track and it was in January. Every other race was on our track, and we just didn’t have the experience on it.”

Gabe Kimpson was originally the lead leg for the team, but an injury the week before the meet kept him out. Stanfield filled in and was able to finish the leg in second place of the four-team heat, before Braimah took the lead on the second leg and Graham maintained it on the third leg.

Losing Kimpson didn’t negatively affect the team, Graham said.

“Tony ran a really good leg, so we didn’t really lose anything,” Graham said. “Tony ran his butt off and he did a really good job.”

Stanfield said he was ready for the challenge of filling in at nationals. The team has had different athletes filling in throughout the year, and all of them are ready to be alternates if needed, he said.

“I was always ready to step up, so I wasn’t really thrown into it,” Stanfield said. “I took care of it and basically did what I was supposed to do. Any one of us could have taken the spot, so I was happy I was the one that got to be in there and help the team out.”

Next up for the ISU track team is a trip to the Disney Invitational this weekend in Orlando, Fla. to begin the outdoor schedule.