Thundering Herd Track and Field return to Huntington Friday and Saturday as they host 17 schools from 10 different conferences at the Chipotle Marshall Invitational.

The Herd are traveling back from last weekend’s meet in Akron, Ohio, where junior Berkley Castro finished first in the one-mile run with a time 5:07.42 and senior Andrea Porter finished first in the 3000-meter run with a time of 10:14.85. Both runners broke records earlier in the season. Also, the 4×400 relay team, Christianna Dougan, Safiyyah Mitchell, Breanna Hargrove and Danere’a White, placed second with a time of 3:37.74.

“What we look forward to is just some confidence from our kids,” meet director and assistant coach Travis Coleman said. “The big thing is trying to keep everything positive. You’re hoping that they’re starting to bounce back from their lifting that we’ve been doing and getting ready to start their peak for next week. Sometimes we get lucky and you see kind just a little glimpse of it. It gives them that little bit of confidence rather than having the doubt in the back of the head.”

Not only is the Chipotle Invitational the third home invitational for the Herd to host this season, it is also the last meet of the regular season before they travel to Birmingham, Alabama for the CUSA championships Feb. 18 and 19.

“It’s nice to have a home meet,” Coleman said. “It’s an opportunity for our kids to sleep in their own bed, to be in front of their fans, their friends and family can come and support them. A lot of times the kids are kind of already set up and ready to go for the conference meet, so for a lot of the kids it’s a just a tune-up or just another chance to get a race in or a competition in to kind of sharpen our skills before we go down to Alabama and get into our conference meet.”

The meet will begin at 5 p.m. Friday and pick up at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Chris Cline Athletic Complex at the Jeff Small Track. Marshall students may attend the meet for free with their student ID cards.

“There’s nothing better than seeing the Jeff packed with so many teams and spectators,” Castro said. “Being at home always brings on the nerves a little more than usual, but I’m excited to compete and cheer on my teammates.”

Kaitlyn Shouse can be contacted at [email protected].