After setting school and individual records last week in California, the Notre Dame men's track and field team will stay in-state this weekend, as a large contingent heads to the Purdue.Though originally scheduled to compete in the Indiana Relays on the campus of the University of Indiana, in Bloomington, weather concerns and the timing of the relays caused the team to choose to compete at Purdue instead.The team heads to West Lafayette, Ind. to compete in the Poehlein Invitational, named after former long-time Purdue coach Mike Poehlein. The non-scoring invitational meet was originally scheduled as a two-day meet for today and Saturday, but all events were moved to Saturday.The meet will be another early opportunity for the Irish athletes to qualify for Big East and NCAA regional competitions, but assistant coach Tim Connelly cautioned against peaking too soon."The NCAA's are a long ways away," Connelly said. "You have to spread out the competition, and build up so that you peak for the NCAA's."As a result of already having qualified for NCAA's and the large amount of time before the NCAA's, sophomore distance sensation Kurt Benninger will not be competing this weekend.Benninger shattered the Notre Dame school record in the 5,000-meter race last weekend at the Stanford Invitational with a time of 13:33.05, a full two seconds under the previous record. The performance was the third fastest in the world thus far.The majority of the team will be competing, however, as the number of NCAA qualifiers looks to grow.Throwing events begin at 9 a.m. with the women's hammer throw and running events beginning at noon with the women's 5,000-meter run.
