Indoor Track In Boston For Valentine Invitational
Meet Schedule │ Entries: M-Track │ W-Track │ M-Field │ W-Field │ Live Results
ALBANY, N.Y. – After taking a week off from competition, the University at Albany indoor track program will travel to Boston University's Track and Tennis Center to compete in the Valentine Invitational Friday and Saturday. It is the fourth meet on the Great Danes' schedule, and will serve as the final tune-up for conference championships next week.
“We looked at these last two weeks as a build up for this weekend and for conference championships,” said Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Roberto Vives. “We wanted to give the student-athletes a break from the mental stress that comes with competing, so they can be fresh as we enter championship season.”
This meet marks the first trip to BU's facility this season, and the first time the full team has visited since last year's IC4A and ECAC Championships. BU's track is considered to be one of the fastest on the East Coast, and will again host IC4A and ECAC Championships this year.
“At this point in the season we're pretty sure what the conference lineup will be,” Vives said. “This meet is an opportunity for us to see where some of our student-athletes may effectively run a second or third event, and to see if a student-athlete can perform well in an event we hadn't considered them for.”
Running athletes in secondary events, as some are doing this weekend, allows them a mental break from the rigors of their primary event, which hopefully allows them to enter conference championships in those primary events fresh.
Valentine is the largest meet in terms of competitors that UAlbany has attended all year. It also had a unique schedule, in that the women and the men compete nearly exclusively on Friday and Saturday respectively.
“The schedule at Valentine benefits the mentality we want our men and women to have for conference championships,” Vives said. “We want the men to focus on the men, and the women to focus on the women, so I think attending a meet where the teams are separated helps generate that focus.”
Additionally, the three weight throwers who are competing at the Millrose Games will make their way to Boston to compete at Valentine as well.
“Two competitions this close together really allows for immediate attention to be given to anything that may have gone wrong in the first event,” said throws coach Deshaya Williams. “It also helps them learn how to get their heads back in the game, and develop good amnesia. Further, it puts the student-athletes in a situation where they have to recover quickly. They need to learn what it takes to recover in a quick amount of time, because they may be asked to do that as championship season rolls around.”
“I think this weekend we will start to see a big rise in performances,” Vives said. “As our last meet before conferences, we want to have some good performances, and get some qualifying marks out of the way. But we just want to see how the student-athletes do. This weekend, there is no stress, no pressure.”
Events begin Friday at 1:00 p.m. with the men's distance medley relay. Afterwards, exclusively women's events will be contested on Friday. Field events begin at 2:00 p.m. Saturday's events begin with the women's distance medley relay at 10:15 a.m., followed by all of the men's events. Field events begin at 11:00 a.m.
