EVANSVILLE, Ind.—The University of Evansville track and field teams will once again hit the road this weekend, as the Purple Aces will take part in the Jim Vargo Invitational hosted by Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. The meet will begin on Friday with field events beginning at 10 a.m. central time and conclude on Saturday with another day of competition beginning at 10 a.m. central.
For Evansville, it will mark the third-consecutive weekend in which the Purple Aces have competed outside. Last weekend, Evansville set 15 personal-best marks, including a new school record in the hammer throw by junior Zach Dove (Princeton, Ind./Princeton Community) at Eastern Illinois’ Big Blue Meet. Despite its name, last week’s meet only featured five teams. That won’t be the case this weekend, as over 25 schools are expected to compete at Bellarmine.
“This meet will be a good challenge for us,” said UE track and field coach Don Walters. “This is going to be a huge meet numbers-wise, and it should be a very good atmosphere to compete in.
“Our goal is still the same: to set PRs. It doesn’t matter the event or discipline, our goal is to always try to improve and get better. We will see some very good individual competition this weekend. Hopefully, that will help our athletes dig down even deeper and continue to get better.”
In addition to Evansville and the host Bellarmine Knights, the competing field is expected to include student-athletes from Aquinas College, Asbury, Centre, Campbellsville, Davenport, Eastern Kentucky, Ferris State, Illinois Springfield, Indianapolis, Kentucky State, Lawrence Tech, Midway, Morehead State, Ohio Christian, Purdue Northwest, Shawnee State, Spalding, Southern Indiana, Thomas More, Tiffin, Transylvania, Trevecca Nazarene, Wright State and Xavier.
Friday’s action will mainly consist of four field events for Evansville: the pole vault, long jump, hammer throw and javelin. The Purple Aces will compete in the “Open” events of every other discipline both track- and field-wise on Saturday. While UE will not have a competitor in the 10,000-meter race this weekend, graduate student Anna Lowry (Taylorville, Ill./Taylorville) does own both the Jim Vargo Invitational and Owsley B. Frazier Stadium records in the event, as she posted a meet-record time of 34:44.38 last spring.
