May 6, 2008

Women's Track Goes for Sweep as League Meet Comes to Campus

    Youngstown -- The Youngstown State women's track and field team will try to win its second conference title of the year at the Horizon League Outdoor Track and Field Championships on the YSU campus this week.
    The Penguins won the league's indoor crown at the beginning of March, and they'll look to sweep the season for the first time since 2005.
    The championship meet will be held at the Youngstown State Track & Field Complex on Thursday and Friday. Thursday's events will begin at noon with the men's hammer and women's long jump and will go until approximately 7:30 p.m. The men's javelin will begin Friday's portion at 9 a.m., and the women's 4x400m-relay will wrap up the meet around 5:15 p.m. Running events on Thursday begin at 2:30 p.m. while Friday's start at 2 p.m.
    This will be the first collegiate meet held on YSU's campus since the Mid-Continent Conference Championships in May 2001. It will also be the first time that the league's outdoor championship will be conducted at a site outside of Indianapolis.
    Tickets will be sold at the gate and will be available in a one or two-day package. A single day pas for adults will be $10 while a two-day package will cost $15. Horizon League students will be admitted free of charge while students attending other colleges or high school will be $5 for one day and $8 for two days. Children aged 5-and-under will also be free.
    The hammer and discus will be contested approximately 1/2 mile south of the main track at the corner of Walnut Street and Adams Street in Smoky Hollow. The main track is located at the corner of the Eastbound Service Road and Elm Street toward the North end of campus. Spectator parking is available near the track for $5 in the R-1 lot, which is located across from Cafaro House on Elm Street. Fans attending the hammer and discus events can park in the nearby M-9 and M-5 lots.
    The Penguins have won seven Horizon League championships in track and field since joining the conference for the 2001-02 academic year. The women have won six of those titles since 2004 while the men's squad captured YSU's first Horizon League crown in any sport in 2003.
    The women's squad boasts 10 members who have at least one individual or relay title to their credit. Senior thrower Bethany Anderson has collected 11 conference titles, and she is one of three members of the team who earned a major award at the indoor championship meet in March. Anderson was named the Outstanding Field Performer, Danielle Curry was named the Field Newcomer of the Year and Boardman High graduate Breanne Romeo earned Running Newcomer of the Year honors.
    The men's team is headlined by throwers Aaron Merrill and Joe Lahmon. Merrill, a native of Leetonia, Ohio, won the shot put during the indoor season and has improved his distance in the outdoor campaign. He holds the league's top mark by seven feet entering the meet, and he ranks 27th nationally. Lahmon was the Outstanding Field Performer at the outdoor championships in 2006, and he ranks second in the hammer coming into the week.
    Merrill and Romeo are two of many local student-athletes on the squad. There are 16 members of the men's team and 13 more on the women's squad who hail from Mahoning, Trumbull or Columbiana counties.