After its eighth place finish at the Razorback Invitational on Jan. 30, the ISU men’s track and field team is using the Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational as a chance to improve heading into the Iowa State Classic.

Iowa State returned home with five personal records from the Razorback Invitational and wants to continue to get better.

Redshirt junior Taylor Sanderson stood out for the Cyclones with his first place finish in the heptathlon, which put him in the ISU track and field record books. He rose to second on Iowa State’s all-time list with a score of 5,426. This week, depending on how he feels, Sanderson will have his sights set on conquering the hurdles.

“I just want to get a lot more racing experience,” Sanderson said. “Last week was my first hurdle race I got to run all year, so I’m just trying to run faster and get more experience.”

Junior Jared Ingram said the Husker Invitational is the last, “not small, but smaller” skilled meet before the Iowa State Classic on Feb. 13 to 14, so it’s just a time to improve.

“For me, [the Husker Invitational] is just something to fine-tune myself for the Classic, where you get to compete with a lot of bigger guys,” Ingram said.

But the Cyclones aren’t taking the Husker Invitational too lightly. Sanderson said there’s usually pretty good competition there and they’re going to take the opportunity to go out and compete.

For freshman jumper Jalen Ford, the focus hasn’t changed much at practice heading into the weekend.

“For everybody right now, it’s just getting back into the swing of things,” Ford said. “For a lot of us, it’s getting comfortable with a new approach and just being able to do little things — starting off with the basics.”

Ford said they go into every meet with the same mindset — get personal bests, transfer everything from practice to the meets and improve.

Ingram said the focus at practice for the sprinters has been putting what they’ve been working on with some new stresses.

“Like anytime, it’s just about getting better,” Ingram said. “But right now, we’re just focusing on getting some speed. We started out with a lot of technical stuff and getting our form right, and now, we’re working on getting endurance so we can keep that form in our races.”

Ingram’s goal for the Husker Invitational is also to hit his marks and get personal records. He said he was two-tenths away from recording his personal best in the 60-meter dash at the Big Four Duals.

For some men on the ISU track and field team, this is time to rest because not everyone will be making the trip to Lincoln, Neb. for the Husker Invitational. But for those who do, it will simply be about improving.

The Cyclones will be back in action Feb. 6 to 7, when they travel to Lincoln, Neb. for the Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational.