KEVIN JENISON

GoSycamores.com

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The Indiana State track & field teams are looking to continue their winning ways when they venture into a venue where they have not had much team luck but plenty of top individual performances.

The Sycamores will travel to West Lafayette, Ind., Saturday for the 18th Gene Edmonds Cup competition, a dual meet between Indiana State and the Purdue Boilermakers. The Sycamores have yet to bring the Cup home but each of the competitions has been close.

Competition will begin at 10 a.m. (ET) with the field events while the track events will begin at noon. The meet is expected to close at approximately 4:30 p.m. (ET).

Indiana State is coming off a pair of victories over Missouri Conference rival Illinois State as the men won 98-46 and the women won 88-61. The double win propelled the Sycamores to keeping the Coughlan-Malloy Cup for the seventh straight year with a combined score of 186-107.

Purdue competed with Indiana in a dual meet at Bloomington last Saturday with the Hoosier women edging Purdue 69-67 while the Indiana men dominated with an 80-52 victory. It was the fourth straight year that Indiana has swept the dual meet with Purdue.

This week's competition will again have some of the top performers in the nation competing.

Featured among the battles will be Indiana State's Felisha Johnson and Purdue's Dani Bunch. Johnson currently leads the nation in both the women's shot put and weight throw while Bunch currently ranks 11th in the shot put and 19th in the weight throw.

On the men's side, Sycamore Chris Fields is ranked 15th in the weight throw and will battle Purdue's Chukwuebuka Enekwechi who is ranked ninth. Purdue's Jakob Engel is ranked seventh in the shot put while Fields leads Indiana State and is ranked 69th nationally.

Indiana State also has the top ranked women's runner in the 800 meters in Leeann Michls who ran a converted time of 2:08.85 at the Coughlan-Malloy Cup last Saturday. Michls will drop down to the 600 meters this weekend.

Junior Greggmar Swift established a personal best when he won the 60 meter hurdles at the 2012 Edmonds Cup with a winning time of 7.77 seconds. He came close to that mark last weekend as he won the event at the Coughlan-Malloy Cup in 7.78 seconds.

Edmonds Cup

The Edmonds Cup was named after Gene Edmonds, an Indiana State graduate and former coach of the Purdue Boilermakers. The winner is determined by the combined score of the men's and women's dual meets. The Sycamores have posted just one victory for the men and one for the women in the 17-year history of the competition with the Boilermakers never relinquishing ownership of the trophy.

The first Edmonds Cup was held in 1996 with Purdue edging the ISU men 64-58 and the women 65-48. The closest Indiana State came to claiming the cup came in 2003 when the Sycamores lost by just 14 points. Indiana State also lost by a mere 17 points.

The Sycamore men have lost six straight to the Boilermakers since posting an 81-78 victory in 2006 while the women have lost nine straight since an 81-78 win in 2003. Indiana State came close on the men's side a year ago as they were edged 82-79 while the women fell 89-73.

ISU Women Remain Seventh In Dual Meet Rankings

The Indiana State women remained seventh in the nation according to this week's Track and Field News magazine's women's indoor dual meet rankings which were released today. The Sycamores were ranked seventh in the preseason poll which was released on Jan. 2.

Indiana State's women's track & field team remained undefeated on the indoor season with an 88-61 victory over Illinois State Saturday in the ninth renewal of the Coughlan-Malloy Cup. The Sycamores opened the season with a victory over Eastern Illinois and Southeast Missouri.

Louisiana State remained on top of the rankings followed by Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas in the top five. The second five is led by Michigan State followed by Indiana State, Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Indiana. The second 10 is led by Princeton followed by Kent State, Purdue, North Dakota State, Western Michigan, Illinois State, Kansas State, Alabama, Eastern Illinois, and Dartmouth.

The Indiana State men were ranked 10th in the nation in the men's indoor dual meet preseason rankings released Jan. 9. The first regular season rankings will be released on Jan. 22. The Sycamore men are also undefeated on the season after a convincing 98-46 win over Illinois State in the Coughlan-Malloy Cup last Saturday. Indiana State also defeated Eastern Illinois and Southeast Missouri State in the EIU Early Bird meet in December.