Men's Track: Bucks 'ready to go' on home track

For the past two weeks, Ohio State runner Matt Comer has nursed strains in his knee and quadricep by drinking a lot of water, eating popcorn and watching his favorite TV shows. Even without training now, he is confident he is up to speed for this weekend's Big Ten Track Championships.

"We've been training for eight months now," said the member of OSU's No. 2-ranked 4x400-meter relay team. "At this point it's just about sharpening the knife. I'll be fine, I'm not worried. I'm still ready to go."

This seems to be the theme of the OSU men's track team, which has several high-ranked individual athletes as well as the No. 2-ranked 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams.

Freshman Corey Leslie is ranked second in the steeplechase, senior Jeff See has a history of scoring in the 1,500-meter, and junior football player Chimidi Chekwa is ranked 10th in the 100-meter dash, to name a few.

"We have a good tradition of really stepping it up," coach Robert Gary said. "Many of our [personal records] are at championship races."

Gary also named senior Bryan Bunnell, the defending Big Ten Champion of the javelin, as an example of OSU's promising athletes. Bunnell is returning from a devastating UCL tear last year. After surgery, it is remarkable that Bunnell is able to perform at this level.

"It usually takes a year to recover, he made a really fast recovery," assistant coach Kevin Mannon said. "He's about the same, or slightly ahead, of where he was last Big Ten. He might be able to pull [winning] off again."

Gary said he was looking to create the excitement of an away meet while capitalizing on the home field advantage.

"We're having our first alumni dinner in the history of the program," Gary said. The dinner is Friday, the first day of the meet.

"It's our home track, and we've got a lot of seniors it means a lot to, friends and family too," Comer said. "We want to win, we always do."