With good weather finally descending upon Bloomington, the men's and women's track and field teams will spend four hours competing Saturday in their first home meet of the outdoor season at the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex.

The Hoosiers will face Ball State, Indiana State and archrival Purdue in the Big Four Meet, which used to be a lot bigger than that, IU coach Sam Bell said.

"We ended up starting this meet several years ago with all the schools in Indiana, and we called it the Indiana Intercollegiates," Bell said. "We just decided to make it a Big Four Meet instead of trying to take care of all the small schools in the state and letting it go on for eight hours."

The team-scoring meet is scheduled to last four hours, with the women's hammer throw scheduled to begin the festivities at noon. Ten minutes later, the men's shot put competition is scheduled. Fifth-year senior Zach Fleming is optimistic about his and teammate sophomore Kurt Krick's chances.

"It looks to be a pretty strong field in all the events (we're competing in): shot, discus, hammer, javelin," Fleming said. "But I'd say that Kurt and I should be able to finish in the top two, at least in the shot and discus, possibly in the hammer."

Various injuries robbed Fleming of most of his indoor season. With his chances to compete having been limited so far this year, he is thankful for the chance to produce strong performances in his final outdoor campaign.

"The whole indoor season, I've just had one thing after another, but I'm starting to heal," Fleming said. "I've gotten to have at least two consecutive days of practice, so I'm happy."

Fleming is one of the lucky ones. Women's coach Roseann Wilson said the women's team has had a veritable epidemic of injuries this week.

"We're actually going into this meet pretty banged up," Wilson said. "We've got our major players that are really hurting right now, (and) everyone that is competing has to be ready to step up."

Among the Hoosiers who are questionable for Saturday's meet are senior high jumper Nathalie Belfort, who has a sore back. Fellow senior Hilary Bruening's hamstring injury, which hindered her indoor season, has sidelined the distance runner for the next week.

Freshman triple jumper Maria Fleischmann has a recurring knee injury. Freshman sprinter Lorraine Dunlop also has a nagging injury, having pulled her hip flexor at the Big Ten Indoor Championships a month ago.

"I think if we had all those players at full strength, we'd win the meet," Wilson said. "But right now, we've got to just go into it with the attitude that people who are competing have to go out there and really be competitive.''