As the Illinois women’s track and field moves toward the weekend, the team will split to attend two different meets. Roughly a third of the team will travel to Austin, Texas, for the 80th running of the Clyde Littlefield Texas relays.

The other portion of the split squad will be traveling to Charleston, Ill., for the Eastern Illinois Invite. The women are coming off of a bye week that followed the Dr. Pepper Invitational. Although the team is divided, there are still expectations for both events, even with the weather being drastically opposite at the two events.

“Here at the Texas Relays we’re expecting some really good things,” assistant coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said. “It’s a great track, the weather is great. We’re expecting to get some (personal) bests and qualifiers. We’re looking for good jumps out of (Yvonne) Mensah, hopefully a personal record out of LaNeisha (Waller) in the hurdles, hopefully a personal best out of Briana Cunningham in the hurdles. There’s a lot that we can do there, and we’re looking for a lot of regional qualifiers.”

The relays started on Wednesday in Austin and the Illini women started the team’s portion of the event Thursday. Junior Briana Cunningham and seniors Camile and Carlene Robinson ran in the 400-meter hurdles. Camile and Carlene each won their heat with times of 58.37 and 57.96 seconds, respectively. Briana Cunningham didn’t fare as well as the Robinsons, but still placed fourth in her heat with a time of 1:00.48 seconds.

“It says a lot about Carlene and Camile,” head coach Gary Winckler said. “There is a great field of athletes here and the fact that they can do that well in their heats really says a lot about them.”

The other women’s squad will be in considerably colder weather in Charleston on Saturday for the Eastern Illinois Invite. Although the split squad going to Charleston is much younger than the squad going to Texas, Winckler still would like the squad to accomplish as much as they can as long as the weather dictates.

“It is going to be a ‘work meet’ for them,” Winckler said. “They would be doing a lot of specific work on their events to make them better at their events. But there is a chance we won’t even go if the weather stays like it is. If the conditions were better, it wouldn’t be an issue, but we don’t want to risk sickness or injury.”