BATON ROUGE- The LSU track and field team concludes the 2000 regular season Friday evening with the LSU Last Ditch, a meet designed to give athletes one last opportunity to qualify for next week’s NCAA Indoor Championships.
“This meet will be the last tune-up for some people to prepare for next week,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “For a majority of the athletes competing, however, this meet is one last opportunity for them to qualify for the national meet. As a result, the intensity level is a little higher for some athletes. It’s a good competition because it’s people who are already in the NCAA meet or are very close.”
Field events get underway at 3 p.m., while track events will begin at 6 p.m.
Both the LSU men’s and women’s teams are in very good shape heading into the national meet. The Tigers have five automatic qualifiers and another three that are very high provisional qualifiers. The Lady Tigers have four automatic qualifiers, but another six athletes with very high provisional marks that should get them into the NCAA meet.
The LSU Last Ditch is one of about a dozen last chance meets taking place around the nation this weekend. While LSU is hosting a last chance of its own, they will also send a pair of athletes to other last chance meets.
The 1999 NCAA 800-meter champion Claudine Williams will attempt to qualify for nationals in her signature event on the oversized track at Iowa State this weekend, as will men’s miler Frans Schimper.
“We’re sending two athletes to Iowa State because the turns on the oversized track in Ames are more conducive to running a qualifying time and we think these two athletes have that opportunity,” added Henry.
The track at Iowa State is the same track that Derrick Brew broke the nine-year-old LSU school record in the 400-meter dash last month. It is also a track Williams is quite familiar with. The senior All-American set the track record in the 600-meter run while attending Barton County Community College two years ago.
Williams’ ability to qualify will be critical in the Lady Tigers’ bid to regain the national title they last held in 1997. Last year’s NCAA Indoor runner-up has yet to register a qualifying mark.
Next week the track and field world will be centered around Fayetteville, Ark., and the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 10-11. The Lady Tigers have won the event eight times and have finished second each of the last two years, while the Tigers have finished in the top 10 two of the last three years.