The final indoor home meet for the WSU Track & Field team is a two-day event that starts Friday, Feb. 5. Held at the building shaped like an oversized igloo, the unmistakable WSU Indoor Practice Facility will give WSU the advantage during this sporting weekend.

Unlike their first home meet, the competition level increases at the Cougar Indoor/Multis meet with only collegiate athletes allowed.

However, it is good for the Cougar athletes to remember to still have fun while embracing the home advantage.

“Last year, I took it way too seriously,” long and triple jumper, redshirt sophomore Greer Alsop said. “Like this is college, this is the real deal now, but as soon as you get serious about it, you just lose the fun and you get in your head and you start making mistakes and you get back at yourself for those mistakes.”

The leadership on the men’s and women’s teams helps to quell the extra nerves from competing at home.

Coming off recovering from an injury, junior CJ Allen will get to race at home in the 60 meter hurdles. He is ranked seventh in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation with a time of 8.16 seconds.

Another notable captain on the women’s team racing this week is senior Dominique Keel who director of cross-country/track and field Wayne Phipps believes “there’s really no sprint event that she can’t do right now. For the 60 to the 4, she’s really been a team leader for us on the track.”

Despite the shorter length of the track, those racing distance events have had their hard workouts and want to excel.

Freshman Reid Muller explained how those racing this week have been preparing, although he is not competing in this meet after helping set the WSU record for the freshman distance medley relay.

“We started off with an 800 meter repeat and she (assistant coach Allix Potratz-lee) said it will be at mile pace so whatever you want to run a mile in, just half of that,” Muller said. “And everybody’s sitting around like ‘what do I want to run a mile in this year?’ So we went out like really hard because everyone has got some pretty hefty goals for what they are going to run the mile in this year. So it was a good toner for the workout, everybody pushing it.”

From hurdles to sprinters to field events to distance races, the WSU team is primed for the start. The Cougar Indoor/Multis will begin 12:30 p.m. today with the 60 meter hurdles that is doubling as an event for the pentathlon. That day will conclude with the long jumping event for men around 6 p.m. The races will start up again at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 6, with more 60 meter hurdles this time as an event for the heptathlon.

The results will be posted at www.wsucougars.com following the end of the events.