PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley women's track and field team begins final preparations for the 2013 Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championship later this month, looking for strong performances at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa, Friday and Saturday.
The Braves will compete in six events in the two-day meet which will be held at the Lied Recreational Center. Sophomore Sarah McMahon (Colfax, Wis./Colfax) is expected to help highlight action for BU in Saturday's 3,000 meter seeded race.
McMahon will run at 11:15 a.m. Saturday, looking to improve on her career-best time of 9:52.51 run at the Indiana Relays last month. Her time was the best performance by a Bradley runner in the 3,000 meters since 2000 and second among Bradley career-best times.
The Iowa State Classic is scheduled to begin Friday afternoon with a trio of BU runners in the unseeded 3,000 meter race at 12:25 p.m. Junior Cassie Lohmeier (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria) is looking to challenge her career-best time in the event of 10:06.57 after clocking a 10:14.18 at Indiana in January.
"We are pumped for the Iowa State Classic this weekend," Bradley cross country/track & field head coach Marc Burns said. "This is the time of year indoors that we really start to see kids racing at their best. Our training is set up to have our team ready from this weekend through the end of indoors. The track is fast and this meet typically is one of the better meets of the year in the entire nation. Our kids are in some great heats so we should see some fast times."
Friday's action also includes the 60-meter hurdles at 1:20 p.m. with sophomore Dana Markech (Arlington Heights, Ill./Hersey) turning in a career-best performance at last week's Keck Invitational in Bloomington, Ill.
Six Braves will compete in the mile at 3 p.m. on Friday and will likely be paced by sophomore Kyela Specht (Munster, Ind./Munster) and freshman Kristen Busch (Waterloo, Ill./Freeburg). Specht, who will be running the mile for the first time this year, owns the top times on the squad in the 600, 800 and 1,000 meters this season. Busch's season-best time of 5:09.69 is second on the team and ranks among BU's top 20 career-best times.
Sophomore Taylor Johnson (Lincoln, Neb./Southeast) will be joined by four other BU runners in the 800 meters at 4:45 p.m. Johnson's career-best 800 meter time of 2:18.26 at Indiana this year is second on the team and 10th on the career-best list.
Bradley concludes Friday's competition at 7:35 p.m. with a pair of teams in the distance medley relay as the Braves look to improve on their season-best effort of 12:06.08, which ranks third in the MVC this season.
Following this weekend's meet at Iowa State, Bradley travels to Iowa City, Iowa, for the Iowa Invite, Friday, Feb. 15.