The ISU track teams will travel to Iowa City on Saturday for a meet with powers from the Big Ten and Missouri Valley Conferences.

Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Drake, Illinois State and Northern Iowa will be at the Musco Twilight meet, hosted by the University of Iowa.

ISU athletes will try to use the meet as a springboard for the Big 12 conference meet in two weeks.

“This is our last tune-up before the conference meet,” women’s coach Dick Lee said. “We’ll probably take next week off.”

Lee and men’s coach Steve Lynn both plan on entering almost all of their athletes.

“Everybody that’s healthy is going to run,” Lynn said.

That will not include Abraham Rotich. Lynn recently learned that Rotich, one of Iowa State’s better middle-distance runners, will be out for the rest of the season due to two stress fractures in his leg.

Although team scores will be kept at the meet, Lee said that scoring will not be a primary focus. “We didn’t do our entries based on team scores,” he said. “We want to give kids their best opportunity in their open events. It is a chance to have people running in open events after a lot of relays at Drake.”

Iowa State’s NCAA Regional meet is coming up at the end of the month, and both Lee and Lynn hope to qualify a few more events before then.

In the 800-meter run, Stephanie Suntken, Jenny Mockler and Carey Morris are all possible qualifiers, Lee said. He also hopes Rebecca Williams, in the 400-meter hurdles, and Cara Van Eck, in the 1,500-meter run, can qualify.

The women may also be able to qualify a 4×400-meter relay team, he said.

Lynn said that of those still trying to qualify on the men’s team, Chris Francois has a good chance in the 1,500-meter run.

Lynn also thinks the men’s 4×100-meter relay has a good chance of qualifying for regionals. He said he expects the team he will use this weekend — James Lopes, Jerod Torrey, Jared Graham and Daniel Kaczmarczyk — is the same team that he will use for the rest of the year.

“I don’t know that they will be at their best this week, but by conference, I think that will be our best combination,” he said.

Lynn is excited by the progress being made by Tony Douglas. Douglas, who has been injured for much of the season, won the long jump at the Simpson College Twilight Open last weekend, jumping 24 feet. “He’s coming back and starting to look a lot better,” Lynn said.

Lynn warned that the team’s performances may be somewhat erratic this weekend.

“With finals coming up, it is easy to get distracted,” he said. “I do think we will have some good performances.”

One of the women’s top performers may be at a different meet. “There’s an outside chance [thrower Susan Sherman] may go to the Howard Wood Relays in Sioux Falls,” Lee said. Sherman’s home is near Sioux Falls, S.D., and she competed at the Howard Wood Relays in high school.

The throwers who go to Iowa City will find some good competition in Hawkeyes Brad Daufeldt and Bill Neumann. Daufeldt and Neumann have qualified for regionals in the discus and javelin, respectively. Neumann won the javelin at the Drake Relays with a throw of 238-11.

The meet will be held at Cretzmeyer Track in Iowa City. Field events start at 3:30 p.m., and running event finals start at 6 p.m.