The Illini men’s track and field squad will split their athletes between two meets in their last weekend of competition before the postseason.

The top sprinters for the Illini will travel to Philadelphia to compete in the Penn Relays, while the rest of the team will head to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Drake Relays. The meets will be the athletes’ last chance to see where they stack up against competition and fine-tune their performances.

The 4×100 meter relay team of All-American seniors Andrew Riley and Stanley Azie, freshman Brandon Stryganek and junior Josh Zinzer will compete at the Penn Relays, where they will face Big Ten opponents such as Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Purdue.

“They’re going to face the best competition they’re going to face outside the national competition this weekend, so we wanted to get them into a meet where they would be a little more tested and a little more challenged,” head coach Mike Turk said.

The Penn Relays hold a deeper significance for Riley, who set the second fastest 110-meter hurdles time in the world last weekend. The first exposure the Illinois track and field program had to Riley happened at the 2008 Penn Relays, where he won the high jump in the high school division, representing Calabar High School in his native Kingston, Jamaica.

“It’s a neat thing for him to go back. His high school will be there and a lot of people from his country will be there,” Turk said.

Since winning the high school high jump title, Riley has taken home countless additional victories — two national championships, nine All-American awards and eight Big Ten championships.

“He’s an amazing guy, and I feel blessed to have an opportunity to see what he’s done here in his time at Illinois,” Turk said.

At the Drake Relays, the Illini will look for continued progress from the middle distance and field events crews, who will face off against the likes of Mississippi, Ohio State and Iowa State. Sophomore and school-record holder Davis Fraker will look to return to early-season form, as he competes for the last time before the Big Ten Championships.

“I’m just going to go into it and see where it goes,” Fraker said. “My confidence is coming back. I had a rough middle of the season, I started out big and I think I kind of just tried to push too hard, but going into the last part of the season I’m fine, I’m ready to go.”

The team will look to put forth season-best times at both meets this weekend, for this is Illinos’ last chance to benchmark its performances before the championship portion of the season begins.

“The thing I’m really excited about right now is I don’t feel like we’ve hit a peak. We’re a lot better than we were last year, we’re doing well as a team, but I don’t think we’ve hit that big peak,” Turk said. “I can see it coming, I think it’s in front of us, and it’s just exciting to have a feeling that it’s all going to come together.”