The Syracuse men’s track and field team recently wrapped up a successful indoor season. The Orange had its best showing in 16 years with a fourth-place finish in the Big East Indoor Championship while sending two runners to the NCAA Indoor Championships.With the indoor season finished, the Orange shifts its focus to the outdoor season and another shot at a possible solid Big East performance. There is no event scheduled for this weekend, but in two weeks the squad will be split up at three separate meets across the country.Much is expected of the team this year after its performance at the Big East Indoor. Head coach Chris Fox sees a top-five finish at the Big East Outdoor Championship as a reasonable goal to shoot for. ‘We have star quality, but we don’t always have a lot of depth,’ Fox said. ‘We’ll score the big points because we have a lot of guys that can win the big events.’The team’s strength lies with its talented group of sprinters who are coming off of an extremely successful indoor season. Senior Michael LeBlanc and sophomore Shamel Lewis lead the group. The tandem proved their worth at this year’s Big East Indoor Championship when they took first and second place in the 60-meter dash, respectively. Juniors Daniel Bailey and Antoine Clark also qualified at the Big East and are capable of scoring points in the sprints as well.Sophomore transfer Jarret Eaton is another short-distance runner who should make some noise this year. Eaton comes off a berth in the NCAA Indoor Championship in the 60-meter hurdles and is one of the better hurdlers in the Big East, Fox said.The Orange has some talent in the distance group as well. Senior Kyle Heath and junior Brad Miller both broke school records during the indoor season. Miller broke the school record for the mile, with a time of 4:00.19. Heath broke the 26-year-old record for the 3,000-meter run, with a time of 8:00.14.’He is probably one of the two best distance runners in the Big East and one of the top-five steeple chasers in the country,’ Fox said. ‘He is going to try and see if he can win a national championship in the steeples.’Miller and Heath are both established runners that can score, but the team will need help from the other runners if they want to take the Big East championship. Fox sees a lot of potential in the group of young runners waiting in the wings, and it will be interesting to see if any of them step up and make some contributions during the year.Despite having several talented runners, Syracuse lacks consistent athletes for the field events. Fox only has 12 scholarships to work with, and he chose to concentrate those scholarships on runners instead of field athletes.’In our sport, there are 18 events and 12 scholarships,’ Fox said. ‘So you can’t fill out every event with scholarship-type kids. You kind of have to pick and choose.’However, one field athlete to watch out for is senior jumper Bernard Bush. Bush had several first-place finishes in the long jump during the indoor season and placed sixth overall at the Big East Indoor Championship. If all of the top-tier runners can stay healthy, there is no telling how far this team can go. ‘A healthy Mike LeBlanc, a healthy Jarret (Eaton), a healthy Kyle Heath and Brad Miller, that puts us right in the thick of it right there,’ Fox said. ‘If some of these young long-distance runners run what they are capable of, we could score a lot of points.’

rwmarfur@syr.edu