Top-ranked men’s track runs at Notre Dame

RELATED LINKS

Live Results

Meet Notes

Start Lists

Final Schedule

FAYETTEVILLE - The No. 1 University of Arkansas men's track and field team will take on a field this weekend at the 25th Annual Meyo Invitational. Competition at the Loftus Sports Center in South Bend, Ind., is scheduled to begin Friday at 4 p.m. (CT) and Saturday at 9 a.m. The two-day event marks the Razorbacks' first road trip of the 2012 track and field season.

"We're mainly going to take our middle distance crew to Notre Dame this weekend," head coach Chris Bucknam said. "We're starting to make progress in that area. Some of our kids need to train and some need more racing. We'll open up Eric Fernandez this weekend at Notre Dame. He hasn't raced yet."

Arkansas continued its reign atop the national rankings with the Jan. 31 release of the USTFCCCA Top 25 poll. The Razorbacks are the No. 1 team in the country for the second-consecutive week. The top-three teams remain unchanged. Arkansas is one of seven teams from the SEC ranked this week, along with No. 2 Florida, No. 3 LSU, No. 17 Ole Miss, No. 18 Mississippi State, No. 22 Georgia and No. 25 Auburn.

Along with host Notre Dame, the field of competition at the Meyo Invitational is scheduled to include ranked opposition No. 10 Indiana, No. 15 Ohio State and No. 19 Iowa, and SEC teams Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Arkansas and Iowa also shared the track last weekend at the Razorback Invitational in Fayetteville.

Through the first three meet of its season, Arkansas has collected four NCAA automatic-qualifying marks with Andrew Irwin in the pole vault, Gunnar Nixon and Kevin Lazas in the heptathlon and its 4x400-meter relay team of Marek Niit, Akheem Gauntlett, Ben Skidmore and Neil Braddy. The Razorbacks also have No. 1 event rankings in the 200 meters (Gauntlett), heptathlon (Nixon) and 4x400-meter relay.

"It looks like we're developing into a great group of competitors," Bucknam said. "When you're on the oval, there's a big difference between racing and running. One of the things I really like about this team is the way they race and compete."

Live results for the 2012 Meyo Invitational will be handled by www.deltatiming.com. For more information regarding Razorback track and field or University of Arkansas athletics, please visit ArkansasRazorbacks.com.