Jumping 13.6 meters into a sand pit apparently wasn’t enough to tire out senior Casey Taylor Saturday at the non-scoring Bloomington Invitational. After landing and learning how far she’d jumped, the Michigan women’s track and field captain got up, high-fived her coach and kept jumping – this time, up and down.

She had not only set a personal best in just the second meet of the season, but also set both a program and an Indiana Harry Gladstein Field record. And she did all that in addition to meeting the NCAA provisional mark for the long jump, which ranked her nationally in the event.

“It was definitely in God’s plans for that to happen yesterday because I had the support of everybody,” she said. “You know, it was a good feeling.”

Taylor was just one of many Wolverines in the spotlight. Michigan claimed 11 first-place finishes.

Captain Tiffany Ofili reached the NCAA automatic qualifying standard in the 60-meter hurdles and captured an NCAA provisional qualifying standard in the 60-meter dash. Teammate and captain Geena Gall ran an NCAA qualifier time in the 800-meter race, running away from her competition in four short laps and blowing out the field in an exciting race for spectators.

No. 3 Michigan went into the non-scoring meet with a competitive mindset to see where it stood against the three other Big Ten schools — Michigan State, Indiana and Purdue — in the contest.

The Wolverines succeeded despite a number of injured regular competitors. Two starting pole vaulters, Abbey Breidenstein and Carly Schiffer, were out after Breidenstein injured her quad and Schiffer sprained her ankle. Alisha Cole, a short sprinter for Michigan, was out with a strained hamstring, and distance runner Linda Montgomery was out sick.

Physical therapy, assisted stretching and rest should yield a healthy team in time for the conference championships at the end of February.

Gladstein Fieldhouse in Bloomington is different from typical venues because its track is banked, meaning the track’s curves are raised. Bloomington, the location of the conference championship meet later in the season, and the Randal Tyson Track Center in Arkansas, are the only banked tracks that the Wolverines will race on this year. After the Wolverines practiced on the track Friday night when the team arrived in Indiana, they took to the change smoothly. The inclines allow runners to run the curves at the same pace instead of slowing down to turn, thus allowing for faster times.

The banked track at Indiana is also made of wood with a rubber coating, unlike the tracks on which the athletes are accustomed to running. The different surface made the runners' feet sound more like a car or horse race.

“It sounds like thunder when they run on it and it is a loud banging sound,” assistant coach Anne Takacs-Grieb said. “It is kind of like an Indy race. It vibrates and shakes you … it adds another level of excitement.”