Warm-ups are over, and playtime is finished for the Pitt track team. For the first few weeks… Warm-ups are over, and playtime is finished for the Pitt track team. For the first few weeks of the outdoor season, the Panthers have enjoyed absolutely annihilating their competition, leaving them more than ready to take on the giants of the track world.

The Panthers’ outdoor season began at the Charlotte 49er Classic in North Carolina, followed by the Fred Hardy Invitational in Richmond, Va., and then the Western Pennsylvania Classic at Carnegie Mellon University. The results of the three meets mirrored each other with the Panthers dominating both on the track and in the field, breaking many meet and personal records in the process.

The Panthers have been so dominant in recent weeks that they serve as a textbook example of why the NCAA divided schools into rankings of Division I, II, and III; so that teams could competitively participate in sporting events.

This could change in the following weeks, however, as the Panthers begin to compete in tougher meets where the competition is raised to its highest levels. This was the intention of the Panthers’ staff; to schedule meets so that their strongest competition would come right before the Big East Championships.

The team took last week off from competition in preparation for the championship stretch. Next week the Panthers will be split up, with some members of the team traveling to Knoxville, Tenn. to compete in the Sea Ray Relays, while the remainder of the team competes close to home at the Bennie Benson Invite.

Those athletes who wish to qualify in individual events for the Big East and NCAA championships will compete at the Sea Ray Relays in an attempt to break the qualifying times for these championships. According to head coach Alonzo Webb, the real season begins now,

“We are heading into what I call the ‘championship season,’ in preparation for the Big East Championships,” Webb said. “We have had our fun, but the real season begins now.”