Rone, a triple jumper/sprinter for the Saluki men’s track and field team, is sitting out of the triple jump in order to keep his legs fresh for the 55-meter dash. He will also attempt to move up in the conference rankings at the Butler Invitational Saturday.

Rone is tied for eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference in the 55-meter dash with a season-best time of 6.49 seconds, but wants to improve that time this weekend.

Coach [Cornell] said this meet is not a scoring meet, Rone said. The conference looks sort of tough in the sprints. I’m tied for eighth in the 55, so I definitely want to lower my time in that.

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Men’s coach Bill Cornell said he wants Rone to sit out of the triple jump to rest and focus more on his sprints.

The pounding in that triple jump week after week is bad on the joints, Cornell said.

The men’s team, which has finished in second place in its last two meets (Purdue and SIU Booster Club invitationals), will face a field of between 15 and 20 teams.

Cornell said he wants all his athletes to go out for season best times this weekend.

There is quite a lot of individuals in the meet, Cornell said. It’s just a week we specialize in individual events and not worry about a team score.

Cornell said he is worried about where his team stands in the conference rankings up to this point of the indoor season.

We just hope they peaked too soon, and we’re just coming on now, but it scares me, Cornell said.

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The women’s track and field team is looking forward to the meet to redeem itself from a poor showing at the Purdue Invitational where they finished in third place out of three teams and scored only 18 points. Senior Kelly French was the lone individual winner in the meet with a first-place finish in the mile (5:00).

Women’s coach Don DeNoon said he is anticipating a solid showing in the distance medley competition.

We’re putting together a strong distance medley team, DeNoon said. We’re looking for a school record (11:50.07) or an NCAA qualifying time (11:38.00).

Competing in the distance medley for the Salukis is sophomore Leah Nolden in the 400, freshman Becky Cox in the 800, senior Raina Larsen in the 1,200 and French in the mile. Their best time this season has been 12:24.97.

Larsen said the team is trying to look past last weekend’s defeat and move on to this weekend.

We are all re-focused, Larsen said. We had some pretty tough intervals this week, and we are all in pretty high spirits.

DeNoon wants to see better performances out of his younger athletes.

We just have some people who need to step up, DeNoon said. We need some of these young kids to put their spikes on right and help out. We haven’t had our kids stepping up like they should be.

The men’s and women’s track and field teams will be in competition at the Butler Invitational in Indianapolis Saturday.