Most of the athletes will compete today through Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, at the Jesse Owens Classic, while a small group of throwers will travel to Toledo, Ohio, to compete over a two-day period in the Toledo Invitational.

Select distance runners will head to California to compete in the Stanford Invitational. However, a majority of the competitors have opted out of competition this weekend to rest as the post-season approaches.

Of those not competing are top throwers senior Greg Pilling, freshman Alex Rose as well as sophomore Josh Kettlewell, who placed first in the long jump, pole vault and 110-meter hurdles, and won the decathlon at the Gina Relays last weekend in Hillsdale.

Track and field director Willie Randolph, who was pleased with the progress Kettlewell made up to this point in the season, will sit Kettlewell this weekend to keep him fresh as the season draws to a close.

“(Josh) had some good things happen with his throws and his hurdles,” Randolph said. “Some things we expect him to do well within, but at the same time winning is one great thing, but improving is the most important thing.”

Randolph said the reason for resting certain athletes while competing others is to give them experience and a good luck at the competition they will be facing in the Mid-American Conference Outdoor Championships.

“The focus is to get out athletes to compete against some of the best in the country, and to meet a lot of the conference foes we haven’t seen all year,” he said.

Mabil Racing in California

On the distance side, senior Riak Mabil is set to compete at the Stanford Invitational. Mabil will run in the 5,000-meter race, where he looks to improve on his previous best time of 14:39.92 recorded at the Raleigh Relays in Raleigh, N.C. on March 26.

With strong competition anticipated this weekend, Randolph has high expectations for Riak and his other distance runners.

“That will be a really high-level meet where they will be able to (race) with some of elite runners in their events,” he said.

CMU totaled 160 points and its closest competitor was Eastern Michigan, which scored 111. Western Michigan finished third (96), Kent State fourth (53.5) and Oakland finished last (5.5).

“We’re excited these women came out here and competed,” said coach Willie Randolph. “We had a balanced attack, and we’re ready for the conference championships.”

Junior Raeanne Lohner won the women’s 3,000-meter run with a time of 9 minutes, 58.69 seconds. Lohner also ran the first leg of the winning distance medley team.

Senior Erika Schroll won the high jump competition for the third consecutive week with a height of 5 feet, 10 inches.

Randolph said home-meet experience is vital for his team’s success and it is important for athletes to be able to get through the anxiety of the competition.

“The home-crowd support surprised me,” Randolph said. “It speaks volumes about where we’re going and what this university has done for us. That’s what collegiate sports should be about.”

The men’s team

The men’s team (151.5) finished second in the meet, 10.5 points behind Mid-American Conference rival Eastern Michigan (162).

Randolph said his staff is moving some athletes to different sprinting events, but thinks the men will be ready for the conference championships.

Freshman Renaldo Powell won the 60-meter hurdles and the triple jump competition. Powell, who competed in his first scoring meet at home, said he does not consider himself a freshman who cannot make an impact.

“At practice, we’re all just trying to compete,” he said. “Everyone on the team just wants to win.”

Powell said he was impressed with the crowd support and it helped him succeed.

“I love having the crowd out here watching,” he said. “It seems like everyone I know is out here and I don’t want to let them down.”

Other winners for the men were Riak Mabil, who won his first race of the season in the 3000-meter run (8:37.61), and senior Marcus Breidinger, who won the pole vault competition by clearing 16’1”.

Pilling

Senior All-American thrower Greg Pilling was formally recognized as the 2008-09 Dick Enberg Scholar Athlete of the Year recipient.

The Enberg award is given annually to a CMU athlete who excels in academics and athletics. It was given to Pilling in the fall, but Randolph said he wanted Pilling to accept the award on the track where it belongs.

“It’s here on the track where he actually gives back the most,” Randolph said. “He’s a class-act young man, and we’re excited about his future.”

The track and field teams is off next weekend, but returns Feb. 12 in the Grand Valley Big Meet in Allendale.

The men’s team will travel Saturday to Athens, Ohio, for the 2009 Mid-American Conference Cross Country Championships, seeking its first conference title since 2004.

“Anytime you go into a conference championship, you go in saying that you want to win and be the best,” said director Willie Randolph. “Anything can happen on a conference day.”

CMU returns five runners that competed in the 2008 MAC Championships, held in Ypsilanti, Mich., where the team finished fourth overall.

Despite a worsening right Achilles, senior Riak Mabil, who finished 12th (25 minutes, one second) last year, will lead the team this weekend. He is seeking his first conference title, with a possibility of Saturday being the last meet of his five-year college career.

“I won’t have any other shot at it,” Mabil said. “It’s all or nothing.”

Pressure is on Mabil and the team to win a title, but there also is a level of pressure on the underclassmen to not let down seniors Mabil and Jacob Korir, Randolph said.

“This is Riak’s last hurrah and his opportunity to leave this program with a ring,” said assistant coach Matt Kaczor.

Behind Mabil is junior Sammy Kiprotich, who led the team and finished seventh (24:49) at the 2008 MAC Championships. Kiprotich finished in the top 50 at the Greater Louisville Classic on Oct. 3.

Junior Chris Pankow and sophomores Jeremy Kiley and Matt Lutzke will compete in the conference championships for a second consecutive year. Pankow placed 19th (25:12) last year as a sophomore in Ypsilanti.

Rounding out the Chippewas’ lineup is true freshman Tecumseh Adams, junior Adam Smith and sophomore Travis Gere, who ran in the open 8K race two weeks ago in Terre Haute, Ind.

“Our goal is to come back with a championship,” Mabil said. “We’re ready; we’ve been working too hard … there’s no way we can’t be ready.”

The team maintained its No. 13 United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association ranking in the Great Lakes region following the Pre-Nationals event on Oct. 1.

At the age of 13, Mabil, along with three of his siblings, arrived to the United States as refugees from northern Kenya.

“I remember it being very cold outside when I got here,” said the cross country and track and field athlete.

Mabil was born on Jan. 1, 1987, in the Duk village of the Jonglei state in southern Sudan, a nation torn ever since the early 1980s.

When Mabil was four years old, he was displaced following a clash between the northern and southern Sudanese governments.

“I don’t know how I made it out alive; I remember seeing someone get shot,” he said.

The government, in opposition of a coup attempt by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, led a massacre of Bor, the Jonglei state capital. The fighting left tens of thousands of civilians dead and thousands more the victims of famine.

“We only ate like once a day over the course of a couple months,” Mabil said.

The escape

In November 1993, Mabil’s father, Aquila, took Riak’s mother, Nyadeng, and five of his eight siblings – Aduk, Monyok, Yom, Mathiang and Aleer – to Lakes, a neighboring state west of Jonglei, to escape the bloodshed.

“My dad was a Sudan People’s Liberation Army official based in Warrap (state) and he came and took us after we survived the massacre,” Mabil said.

Mabil left in early 2000 for the Kukuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya, where he met up with sister Aduk. At the camp, he met older brothers Jacob and Mawut, and sister Nyaring, for the first time.

“My older brothers were part of ‘The Lost Boys’ who left home in 1987, so I never got to meet them until I came to Kakuma,” Mabil said.

The Lost Boys of Sudan was the name given to the 27,000-plus orphaned boys during the civil war from 1983 to 2005, when the fighting came to an end.

Mabil’s parents remain in southern Sudan today. He has not seen them since leaving northern Kenya in 2000, but talks to them on the phone on occasion.

“They’re happy that I’m going to school here — that’s the main thing,” Mabil said.

A new life

Change came quickly for Riak as the Lutheran Social Services of Michigan placed him and his three siblings — 17-year-old brother Jacob, 15-year-old sister Aduk and 12-year-old sister Nyariing — with a foster care family in Charlotte, Mich. There, he enrolled for the eighth grade spring semester and began his high school career at Charlotte High School.

“It was different (the atmosphere), but we all got along,” he said. “The first couple days of school were difficult; not knowing where to go, but a lot of kids were willing to help.”

Tom Sneckenberg, Charlotte High School football coach and Mabil’s cross country/track and field coach during the 2002 and 2003 seasons, said Mabil’s willingness to work and prove himself made him stand out.

“He was one of my best runners, even as a freshman,” he said. “His work ethic was such; the kids never doubted his ability … and he proved that time in and time out.”

Mabil lived down a dirt road in the country and would run in or ride his bike miles to school most of the time, Sneckenberg said.

Finding success

Social services moved Mabil halfway through his sophomore year to Grand Ledge, where he attended Grand Ledge High School.

Things did not click right away, though.

“He was extremely shy at the beginning, but he became more outgoing as he continued on in sports,” Lutheran Social Services caseworker Sally Campbell said.

Grand Ledge cross country coach Kim Spalsbury runs a team-based program, something Mabil clashed with in the beginning.

“He excelled from day one with us, but it took a little while before we could get on the same page training-wise,” he said.

It did not take very long before Mabil experienced success, however. He went on to become a three time all-state performer and currently holds the school record in cross country (15 minutes, 48 seconds), Spalsbury said.

“By the time he reached his senior year, he was accepted and well known at Grand Ledge,” Spalsbury said.

His success brought on looks from several different schools in Michigan, as well as Minnesota and Indiana, including a scholarship offer from Eastern Michigan, Mabil said.

“I’m incredibly proud of him,” Campbell said. “I feel so blessed to be able to watch and participate in his life. I think I’ve learned more from him than he has from me.”

Coming to CMU

Mabil’s decision to come to CMU was made after attending the Mid-American Conference Indoor Track Championship the school hosted and won in February 2005.

“It was electric in the building and I wanted to be a part of that,” he said. “We have the MAC Indoor Championships this February so, hopefully, I can do something to help the team and make it feel like February 2005 all over again.”

Mabil also attributes friend Abraham Mach, who ran for the team from 2006-08, as another variable that attracted him to Mount Pleasant.

“He’s from the same part of southern Sudan as I am and our story is basically the same,” Mabil said. “He went to East Lansing High School and our schools were rivals so, when he was here, it made me want to come here, too. He was really good and I wondered what it would be like to be on the same team.”

Since coming to CMU in 2006, Mabil has competed in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field consistently since the 2007 season. He was named second-team all-conference for cross country last season and MAC Indoor Track and Field Champion in the 5000m last spring.

Director of cross country/track and field Willie Randolph said Mabil’s life experience has allowed him to grow as a person.

“It’s an opportunity for other athletes to really understand what hard work, dedication and focus really means,” Randolph said. “Coming from the environment he came from and the experiences he’s had, you really can’t say anything about it unless you’ve experienced it yourself.”

Looking back, Mabil said his youth as a refugee made him a stronger person.

“Where I’m from is a place where little boys become grown men at a young age,” he said. “I saw a lot of things a little child should have never seen.”