March 4, 2010

DEKALB, Ill. - The Northern Illinois track and field will team will kick-off its 2010 outdoor season Saturday, March 6, when the Huskies travel to Las Vegas, Nev. to compete in the UNLV Track Classic at the Myron Partridge Stadium and Sheila Tarr-Smith Field. The Huskies will face off against Southern Utah, UNLV, Utah Valley, Weber State, Montana State and Anchorage-Alaska at the classic.

Saturday's competition is set to begin with field events at 12:30 p.m., while the track events will commence at 1 p.m.. The final event of the evening will be the 4x400-meter relay which is scheduled for 6 p.m.

"This weekend we are heading to UNLV where we will see some of the top competition in the U.S. for the outdoor season," head track and field coach Connie Teaberry. "Our indoor season ended with some great performances, but we did not compete the way we wanted to move up in the conference. Now, we want to really focus on the outdoor season so when it comes time for May we can improve our performances at the championships."

NIU concluded its indoor season last weekend at the 2010 Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., where several Huskies achieved personal-best performances. Rhonda Lee (Flint, Mich./Carman-Ainsworth), Rasheta Butler (Chicago, Ill./Percy L. Julian), Breanna Brevitt (Dixon, Ill./Dixon), Rochelle Muskeyvalley (Rock Island, Rock Island), Nancy Maritim (Kericho, Kenya/AIC Litein), Courtney Oldenburg (West Salem, Wis./West Salem) and Jenner Sio (Rockford, Ill./Christian Life) all concluded the championships with personal-best marks.

The Huskies saw their top performance of the weekend when the 4x400-meter relay team raced to a season-best time of 3:56.69 to achieve an eighth-place finish. Butler, Muskeyvalley, Brittany Houghton (Freeport, Ill./Dakota) and Rebecca Cronin (Bartlett, Ill./Bartlett) represented the Huskies 4x400-meter relay team at the championships.

"We set our outdoor schedule up in such a way that we face tough competition throughout season, in hopes that when we get ready for the MAC Outdoor Championships we will fare better than we did during the indoor championships," said Teaberry. "We are going to start our indoor season off by heading to Las Vegas this weekend, and we are excited to get the outdoor season underway."

Following Saturday's competition the Huskies will take a month break from competition before heading to Austin, Texas to compete in Texas Relays hosted by the University of Texas on April 1-3.