As the Iowa track team heads into the last half of the season, the opportunity for it to start a critical stretch off right begins this weekend at the Illinois Twilight meet.

This weekend features a meet of mostly lower-tier schools along with Big Ten foe Illinois. This meet is the last before a stretch of some of Iowa’s biggest meets of the season, including the the Mt. Sac Relays in California, the Drake Relays, and the Musco Twilight meet.

Head coach Layne Anderson looks at this string of meets as incredibly crucial when considering how his team will do in the Big Ten.

“This is the stage in the season where you don’t want to feel like you’re taking steps back,” Anderson said. “We have kids that are ranked high in the Big Ten in a variety of events, and we want to keep that momentum going.”

Anderson also hinted that there was a possibility that some of the team members will sit out the meet to rest for the stretch and this could be a chance for the team to find some depth.

In fact, depth might be one of the greatest hindrances to the team’s success, something the coaches are well aware of.

“We feel like we have a good young team, and we’re making some good momentum, but we’re not a good enough team to ride the backs of a few people,” Anderson said. “We can’t rely exclusively on our young sprint corps and a few throwers.”

Of the throwers, Gabe Hull has racked up all sorts of points for the team this season, competing in the hammer throw, discus, and shot put. He has scored team points in every event that he’s been entered in to this outdoor season.

A portion of the runners Anderson referred to has been the enormously successful women’s relay members.

The 4×400-meter relay team — freshmen Elexis Guster and Alexis Hernandez, and sophomores MonTayla Holder and Lake Kwaza — leads the conference with a time of 3:34.83. The quartet beat the school record for the 4×400 with that time at the Arkansas Spring Invitational on April 5.

Holder ran the third leg of the winning women’s 100-meter and 4×400 relays; the sophomore won three titles in Arkansas.

Jumps and field events in general have been a huge for the team this season, a carryover from the indoor season, in which junior Babatunde Amosu won a championship in the triple jump.

Sophomore Klyvens Delaunay has also established himself in the event, and either of the athletes could win a meet on any given day.

Elsewhere in the jumping events, sophomore Khanishah Williams and freshman Madison Rouw rank second and fourth in the Big Ten high jump.

“We’re always just looking to get a little bit better — jump a little bit higher,” assistant coach Molly Roberts said. “If we [set personal records] right now, that’s OK, but we want to be able to do it by the end of the season, too.”

Iowa will begin competition at noon Saturday in the one-day meet.