The Illinois women’s track and field team will compete in its last regular season meets of the year this weekend.

The Illini will send their top relay crews to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays. The rest of the squad will travel to Des Moines, Iowa, to compete in the Drake Relays. Both meets garner national attention, as high school, collegiate and professional divisions compete.

“I just want to go out there and compete,” junior Marissa Golliday. “There’s going to be really good competition at these meets, and I just want to bring it.”

The 4×100 and 4×400 meter relay squads featuring All-American freshman Ashley Spencer, senior Ashley Kelly, sophomore Breeana Coleman and freshman Asia Thomas will represent Illinois at the Penn Relays, facing Big Ten competitors Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State.

“It will be exciting to see if we can get our main relays you run at the national championships, the 4×100 and 4×400, if we can get those times faster,” head coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said.

The rest of the Illini will compete at the Drake Relays. Along with the 1,600-meter relay, the 3,200-meter relay team will have its first chance this season to compete in an official meet.

“We’ve got a pretty good 4×800 contingent, and we’re hoping we can get the school record (8 minutes, 44 seconds) in that event — that would be exciting,” Buford-Bailey said.

The relay-style meets will help the Illini not only to polish their performances but also to get a sense of what to expect when they begin competing in larger meets starting May 11 at the Big Ten Championships.

“This is a relay meet, so it’s really fun,” Buford-Bailey said. “It’s a chance to go in and feel like you’re in a team atmosphere because most of the events are relays.”

With this weekend marking the end of the regular season, the Orange and Blue are rounding into postseason form, both on and off the track.

“We all really start to come together because we are all really everywhere — field events, distance, whatever — but when it comes to Big Tens and things like that, we really try to incorporate with each other, and the spirit of the team is just happy and ready to compete,” Golliday said.

This Illini squad, which has seen a vast improvement from last year’s team, is preparing to put forth another impressive performance in the outdoor postseason, much like it did during the indoor season.

“At this point, we’re doing really good,” Buford-Bailey said. “We are around where we need to be, and people are still getting better. I wouldn’t say we’re all at our best yet, which is good because we need to be at our best at Big Tens.”