The Fighting Illini track and field team kicked off its indoor season Friday at the Saluki Fast Start hosted by Southern Illinois. The Illini placed first in four events.

“It went well, it went about as well as I expected,” Illini head coach Wayne Angel said. “Across the board, our hurdlers are looking well, compared to last year we have hurdlers running faster times than they ran last year. The 600 (meter runners) are probably right around where they need to be compared to last year. The distance runners had cross country, but I think in terms of what we’re trying to do and what we’ve been training for, I think we’re on track to do pretty good.”

Nevertheless, Angel sees definite room for improvement in his team, especially with distances shorter than 200 meters.

“As far as the 60 meters, we don’t have Dominique Worsley because of injury, so we’re kind of hurting right now,” Angel said.

Angel also mentioned a slight disappointment with All-American runner Gakologelwang Mahseto, who’s last competitive race prior to Friday was at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

“Masheto, I was hoping he’d run a little faster but he didn’t have any competition and the heats were smaller and the competition was less,” Angel said.

Masheto echoed those feelings.

“I feel good. I was hoping to run faster than what I did, but the problem was there were only two opponents in my heat,” Masheto said.

The disappointed attitudes served as a testament to how good Masheto really is, for he still came home from Carbondale, Ill., with two of the Illini’s four first-place finishes.

He won the 400 meter in 48 and three-tenths seconds and the 4x400m relay in 3:18.74, which he anchored for teammates sophomore Dan Jones, junior Gary Miller and senior Maxwell Mkwezalamba.

The other two first-place finishers for Illinois included junior Brian Beaird in the 800 meter with a time of 1:54.42 and freshman Graham Farnsworth in the mile with a time of 4:25.57 in his first collegiate race.

Angel’s team will have more than a month to rest up for their next competition, a Jan. 10 dual meet against Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.

But for now Angel thinks they are about where they should be at this point in the season.

“Based off of today’s competition we’ll keep doing the things that we’re doing, to gain endurance, in the weight room,” Angel said.

The coach then added that “one of the things we continue to do, is that we want to be consistent in our training, and a month from now, we can build off of the momentum that we have now.”