“(Senior thrower) Anthony Agrusa, our senior that just broke our school record in the weight, was a walk-on here, and the coach that was here before me didn’t know if he was going to stay on the team,” Newell said. “He’s consistently scored points for us at Big Tens, and he’s just an awesome guy.”

In addition to Agrusa, Newell recognized the honor it’s been for him to see where his throwers were when they were straight out of high school and compare it to where his team is now. Having that same relationship with each incoming class, Newell has been able to have a drastic influence on the marks his team is hitting.

“I’ve been able to see them straight out of high school,” he said. “Just seeing the development is kind of special and knowing where these kids have come from — knowing that they haven’t come out of high school with these huge marks.

“They’re just kids that want to be good.”

Seeing individual success throughout the course of a few years, Newell said he also is impressed with what his team already has accomplished after just two indoor meets this season.

Opening the season at the Kentucky Invitational in Lexington, Ky., on Jan. 14-15, redshirt freshman thrower Zack Hill took first place in the men’s shot put with an 18.24 meter toss. Along with Hill, MSU had four additional throwers have top-10 performances in the event, including junior thrower Aaron Ide in fourth place with a mark of 16.82.

Last weekend at Michigan, Hill once again came out on top in the shot put with an 18.42 meter throw, and Agrusa was second in the weight throw with a toss of 19.56 meters.

Right behind Agrusa was sophomore thrower Lonnie Pugh in third, junior thrower Jay Gillespie in fourth and junior thrower Brad Wentzel in fifth.

“We’re really deep,” Hill said. “We have a lot of guys. Where some teams might have one good guy, we have a lot of really good guys, especially in the weight for indoors.

“We’re looking really good in that.”

Next to the men, the women’s indoor team has the same depth, which stood out against the Wolverines.

Sophomore thrower Shatora Lewis finished in third place with a 14.11 meter toss in the shot put, and senior Ashley Lawrence and junior Catherine Daniels came in fourth at 14.00 meters and fifth at 13.52 meters, respectively.

Being her first competition of the season, Lewis said her performances in the shot put and weight throw were solid, but as the team prepares for the rest of the season, she expects to continue improving.

“I know I can do much better, but so far, it’s going pretty good,” Lewis said. “It was my first meet, and I’m looking forward to doing bigger and better things.”

With MSU’s season building up for the Big Ten championships at the end of February, the team still has a lot of time to improve its technique and look to get some higher marks. The Spartans will be training hard before beginning their taper into the postseason.

“We’re training very hard at this point in the year, and they’re not getting a lot of rest before going into the competition,” Newell said.“So by the end of the year in about four weeks for indoor Big Tens, they’re going to be a little more rested, so we should see some bigger marks out of them.”

Expecting tough Big Ten competition at the conference championships, the throwers have the talent to stand out in a big crowd.

Performing as well as the throwers have with numbers strong enough to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships and to be in the top 50 in the nation, Newell said the team has enough potential to carry it through the postseason championships.

“We’ve progressed a lot, and we’re doing really good,” Lewis said. “So I feel like at Big Tens, we’re going to do big things.

“People are going to be really surprised because we have some really talented people on the team.”