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MILWAUKEE, Wis. (Feb. 13, 2007) - Competing at its last meet before the Horizon League Championships, Feb. 24-25, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's track and field team will host its only home meet Friday at the Klotsche Center. The UWM Double Dual will kick off at 4 p.m. and feature teams from Chicago and Milwaukee.

Joining the Panthers in their home arena will be league foes UIC and Loyola, Chicago State and local Division III teams MSOE and Concordia. Admission to the meet is $5 for adults and $3 for seniors and children. Tickets are available at the door. UWM students are admitted free with a valid school ID.

UIC, Loyola and Chicago State each competed at this meet last season, with UWM scoring three wins and one loss in dual meet scoring. The Panthers edged each of the three Chicago schools, but fell to Wisconsin. Joy VanLaanen highlighted the meet with her fieldhouse record of 12-3 ¾ in the pole vault.

Milwaukee is coming off the Iowa State Cyclone Classic last weekend in Ames, Iowa. Sophomore Jenni Saarinen and junior Amber Curtis broke the school record in the weight throw and had the second-best shot put in school history to lead the way.

Curtis had a memorable meet in her first in a Panther uniform. She transferred to UWM between semesters from Nebraska and made her debut last weekend at Iowa State. She threw 45-9 in the weight throw on Friday to break freshman teammate Jamie Woods' school record in the event of 44-4 ¼. Then Saturday, Curtis posted a league-best throw in the shot put with her toss of 45-1. That distance is second in school history, behind on Anne Vuchichevich's school record of 46-10 ¼.

Saarinen posted a score of 3,688 points in the pentathlon last weekend to break her own school record in the event and miss the NCAA Provisional standard in the event by just 12 points. Saarinen had held the mark of 3,459 points set at the Horizon League Championships last season. She then tied her personal-best in the long jump, clearing 18-6 in the event. That distance is eighth in school history.

Sophomore Beth Zimmerman has paced an impressive corps of jumpers, including Saarinen, sophomore Kicha Cary and freshman Reigna Pierce. Zimmerman won her first three triple jump and two long jump events of the season, breaking the school record in the triple jump twice, lastly with a leap of 39-0 ½ at the Madison Elite Invitational. Last weekend, she jumped 18-8 in the long jump, establishing a PR and moving up to sixth in school history.

Cary, meanwhile, has posted four second-place finishes behind Zimmerman and briefly held the triple jump mark at 38-8 ¾. Pierce has given the current Milwaukee squad three of the top four triple jumps in school history, as she cleared 37-6 ¾ at Iowa State on Saturday.

Friday's meet is the team's fourth in the state of Wisconsin among its five "regular season" meets. Despite the UWM Double Dual being its only home meet of the year, the Panthers will also compete in-state three times in the outdoor season, including in nearby Wauwatosa at the Wisconsin Lutheran Invitational March 31 and across town at the Marquette Invitational April 13-14.

After this week, UWM is off to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the 2007 Horizon League Indoor Championships. The Panthers are the defending league indoor champions and have returned league champions from six individual events and half of their league-champion 4x400m relay.