With the Mid-American Conference Championships less than a month away, the Kent State track and field teams are hoping to show improvement in tonight’s meet.

The women’s team will face Ohio, Youngstown State and Miami, while the men’s team will host Ohio at 6 p.m. tonight in the Kent State Fieldhouse,

Kent State coach Bill Lawson said this meet will be a little different from last Friday’s dual against Akron, where the men won and the women lost. He said he isn’t expecting his athletes to have any big performances tonight because he considers this meet to be mostly a preparation for the MAC Championships.

“We’re not peaking anyone for this weekend, so we’re going to be very heavily trained, what we call ‘loaded up,’ going into this weekend,” Lawson said.

Lawson said he expects the men’s and women’s throwers, pole vaulters and the men’s sprinters to do well tonight. He also said there should be a strong performance by Jessica Lhotsky in the women’s 800-meter run.

“She will be ready to run pretty fast,” Lawson said. “We’re actually going to try to go after a fast (800-meter run) with Jess.”

Robert Falchi, a freshman long/triple jumper from Australia, is also expected to have a standout opening performance tonight in the long jump competition.

“From short approach, he should do very well,” Lawson said.

Though Lawson said he expects the teams to do well tonight, he added that they won’t be in full strength until the MAC Championships, which are Feb. 27 and 28. The coaching staff will hold some athletes out of tonight’s meet.

“We were training throughout this week in order to get ready for Penn State, which is next weekend,” Lawson said. “We’re just going to go out and compete to the best of our ability, and let the chips fall where they fall.”

Contact sports reporter Megan Moore at [email protected].