In track and field, the competitors often lose sight of beating their fellow competitors and focus on posting a personal best or qualifying time. But the essence of collegiate sports is to compete against athletes that represent other schools. Temperatures below 50 degrees and winds gusting at 25 miles per hour at the Yellow Jacket Invitational in Atlanta on Saturday forced the men’s track and field team to focus on beating the competition instead of the clock.

“If the weather is bad, you have to go back to the basics and compete,” coach Ron Warhurst said.

Running in his first outdoor meet of the year and competing for the first time since winning the distance medley relay at the NCAA Indoor Championships, senior Rondell Ruff was one of the Wolverines that competed well and ran strategically strong races.

“The wind made all of the races very tactical,” Ruff said.

In the 1,500-meter run, nobody wanted to push the pace because of the wind, and Ruff stayed near the back of the pack for the opening kilometer. After William Emase of South Carolina made a move to the front of the field 500 meters from the finish, Ruff responded with a big push and overtook Emase. Ruff held on to the lead and finished with a time of 3:53.99, beating Emase by .95 seconds. Ruff’s teammate — freshman Mike Woods — took fourth-place in the race.

Two and a half hours after the 1,500-meter run, Ruff earned a fourth-place finish in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:51.62, three seconds behind the winner, 2004 Olympian Sheridan Kirk of Auburn. Three hundred meters from the finish, Ruff made a big push to move into third place but fell to fourth at the finish.

“We have not been working on speed much, so I’m happy to be able to close like I did,” Ruff said.

Two hours after the 800-meter run, Ruff’s 4x400-meter relay team, which included freshman Chris Stowe, senior David Battani and senior Nick Meter, finished in third place. Ruff ran a personal-best time of 48.9 seconds on the closing leg.

“We want kids that want to compete, even when the weather is bad,” Warhurst said.

Despite the weather, a few Wolverines posted regional qualifying times and multiple runners hit personal-bests.

In the 400-meter hurdles, Stowe posted a regional qualifying time of 52.29, shaving 2.07 seconds from his previous personal-best.

Sophomore Michael Whitehead won the triple jump title and earned an NCAA regional qualifying score with a jump of 49-11 in his first outdoor event of the year.

In the 110-meter hurdles, sophomore Jeff Porter posted his second NCAA regional qualifying score in as many weeks with an eighth-place time of 14.20 seconds.

Senior Joey Sarantos improved his previous personal-best by 10 feet in the discus with a seventh-place throw of 162-4.

In the 5,000-meter run, sophomore Ethan Brown ran a personal-best time of 14:48.95 en route to a fifth-place finish.

“When the weather gets better, then you can go for the qualifying times,” Warhurst said.

The team hopes for better weather and lower times at the Sun Devil Invitational at Sun Angel Stadium in Tempe, Ariz.