LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- After over a month away from competition the University of Evansville track and field team is back in action on Friday.

The Purple Aces will compete in their first meet of 2025 Friday, January 24th as they travel to Kentucky for the PNC Bank Bellarmine Classic. It will be UE's third straight season appearing in the meet hosted by the Bellarmine Knights at the Norton Healthcare Sports & Learning Center. Evansville will look to improve on its performance from last season as the men's team finished 13th and the women's team finished 17th.

On Friday the Aces will be one of 19 schools competing, including 10 teams from Kentucky. Along with UE, athletes scheduled to compete will hail from Ball State, Bellarmine, Dayton, Eastern Kentucky, Morehead State, Northern Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Western Kentucky, Wright State, Xavier, Campbellsville, University of the Cumberlands, Hanover, Midway, Spalding, Transylvania, Illinois Springfield and Vincennes. Evansville has not competed against any of the teams at the PNC Bank Bellarmine Classic during the 2024-25 indoor season through two other meets.

The last meet the Aces participated in was the Indiana Early Bird back on December 13. Sophomore sprinters Taylor Johnson (Evansville, Ind. / Reitz HS) and Raymond Felton III (Houston / Clear Brook HS) set three program records for UE in Bloomington. Both the men's and women's 200-meter records were reset along with the women's 400-meter record. Overall Evansville competed in 16 events with two podium finishes in the team's last appearance of the season. Johnson set her first program record of the meet in the 400-meter dash. Placing fourth in the event, Johnson ran the 400 in 57.32 second beating her program record from the year prior by just under half a second. Her second program record was in the 200 race with a time of 25.28 seconds for another fourth-place finish. In the men's 200-meter dash Felton earned a third-place podium finish along with setting a new program record at 21.84 seconds. 

The Aces will begin the day bright and early at 8:45 a.m. with the women's weight throw. UE will compete in 18 events on Friday with the final event coming at 3:30 p.m. with the men's 4x400-meter relay. Evansville fans can follow along with the team's performance through Live Timing.