Five Notre Dame men will compete in one of the largest and most prestigious track meets in the world this weekend. The Mount San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) Relays commence today and will continue through Sunday night.
Adam Currie, Tim Moore, Eric Morrison, Selim Nurudeen and Sean O'Donnell will represent Notre Dame at the meet in Walnut, Ca. Currie will run in the 800-meters, and Moore and O'Donnell will both compete in the 5,000 meters. Morrison will run the 1,500 meters, while Nurudeen takes his normal place in the 110-meter hurdles. There are no field athletes making the trip to California.
The meet will feature student-athletes from colleges all across the country and many other competitors from all over the globe.
The Irish will compete against runners from Air Force, Arkansas, Boston College, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, USC and many others. There will also be competitors representing the nations of Canada, China, Japan and a host of others. In addition to these two groups, there will also be teams of athletes sponsored by Nike, Reebok and athletic apparel companies.
Notre Dame will send a much larger contingent to the Indy Relays in Indianapolis, a meet hosted by Butler University on April 16.
On the track, Chris Jacques and Tommie Lee will lead Notre Dame in the 100-meter dash. Geoff Bennett will run in the 110-meter hurdles, and the trio of Todd Ptacek, Kaleb VanOrt and Jake Watson will compete in the 1500-meters.
Notre Dame will also have a strong presence in the field competitions at Indy. Along with Derek Goguen in the javelin, the Irish will have a bevy of hammer throwers competing. Chip Roberts, Kyle Annen, Garrett Koxlien, Michael Schubert and Kevin Moffitt will all participate in the event. Irish jumpers will include Dave Viken and Justin Oppel in the pole vault and Chris Jacques and Chris Staron in the high jump, with Jacques also competing in the long jump.
Hammer thrower Kevin Moffitt explained the reason behind the split.
"Mt. SAC is more of a national meet, and therefore has higher qualifying standards," Moffitt said. "Indy is a more local meet and is a good opportunity for us to get out there and work on improving our Big East or Regional qualifying times."
