Last week WKU Athletics Director Ross Bjork, was introduced to the same position at Mississippi. Bjork’s old school will face his new school on Saturday as WKU travels to Oxford, Miss., to compete in the 2012 Ole Miss Invitational.

WKU will be one of 30 teams partaking in Saturday’s meet. The men’s hammer thrower will begin the day, followed one hour later by the women’s 2k steeplechase.

Head coach Erik Jenkins said that his team is ready to race regardless of their competition.

“I’m happy, and we want to compete against anybody whether it’s a big team, Sun Belt, SEC or Pac 12,” he said. “At the end of the day we don’t get all excited about the name of what conference a school is in… we do what we can to the best of our ability.”

Although the women and men’s teams will be participating in their second outdoor meet for the season, this will be senior sprinter Cailean Robinson’s first outdoor race of the season.  

“I pulled my hamstring at the indoor conference so hopefully I can run, I’m just trying to get back into,” he said.

Robinson has been recovering from his injury by working with a trainer and massage therapist to keep him loose and stay active. He said that in preparing for this meet he should be ready just in time for WKU’s own home meet on April 14.

“I should definitely be ready by Hilltopper Relays,” Robinson said.

Middle distance runner David Mokone is also racing in two of his preferred events – the 1500 and the 4×400-meter relay.

He did not compete in this past weekends meet, but worked hard by training while his team was away. Unlike Jenkins, Mokone does think this weekend’s meet will be tougher than usual.

“I think it will be tough because it’s SEC and there some tough guys, but it makes for better competition,” Mokone said.

As usual spectators who wish to see those pre-registered men’s and women’s track teams compete in the 4×400-meter relay must wait until the end of the meet.

The Ole Miss relay team most recently recorded a time of 3:11.19 in this relay. In order for the Toppers to beat that score, they must decrease their most recent recorded time by 3.39 seconds. This past weekend the quartet of De’Myco Winston, Karlis Daube, Marcus Pope and Marcus Winstead crossed the relay finish line with top honors after earning a time of 3:14.58.

Jenkins said he will once again switch a few of the runners up in order to bring variety specifically to this race.

“Last week we went really long but this weekend we come more shorter and people will run relays and run them much more successful,” Jenkins said. “We will add a little bit more variety so that we know what we can and cannot do later on down the road with certain individuals with these relays.”