FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — All eyes in the track and field world will be on Fayetteville, Ark., this weekend, as the NCAA Indoor Championships will begin Friday afternoon and conclude Saturday evening.
The LSU men’s and women’s teams worked out at the brand new $6.5 million Randal Tyson Track Center for 90 minutes Thursday afternoon in their final tuneup before competition gets underway.
The third-ranked Lady Tigers have 10 athletes in Fayetteville this weekend, while the third-ranked Tigers have seven.
The Lady Tigers will be searching for their ninth team title and their first since 1997. The Tigers will be looking to finish in the top 10 for the fourth time in the last five years. The Tigers have never finished higher than fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
“We’ve got good groups on each side qualified for this weekend,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We have a very experienced group here and that has a certain value to it. With the level of competition here this weekend, however, and so many teams so close to one another, one mistake could take you out of the competition.”
Texas is the favorite to win their third consecutive indoor title on the women’s side, while Arkansas is a heavy favorite to make it four in a row on the men’s side. UCLA is ranked second on the women’s side, while Stanford is a distant second in the men’s poll.
The Lady Tigers hopes will ride on a well-balanced attack headed by national favorites Peta-Gaye Dowdie and Keisha Spencer. Dowdie, the defending NCAA Indoor 200-meter champion, has been tabbed by Trackwire as the favorite to claim both the 60 and 200-meter dash titles, while Spencer is a heavy favorite in the triple jump.
Spencer owns the top five marks in the nation in the triple jump this year, however, it is her entry in the long jump that could turn the tide for the Lady Tigers.
The Lady Tigers have three entries in the long jump – Spencer, Monique Freeman and Chenelle Marshall. While Freeman and Marshall rank higher than Spencer in the event, Spencer has been the most consistent, finishing third at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships two weeks ago and jumping no less than 20 feet 5 inches at any meet this year.
In addition, the Lady Tigers return a pair of All-Americans from a year ago that will need to perform close to their level of a year ago. Joyce Bates is the defending NCAA 60-meter hurdles champion, but finished fifth recently at the SEC Championships. She countered that with a strong 8.18 second showing last weekend at the LSU Last Ditch, however, serving notice that she is still in NCAA form.
Claudine Williams was the NCAA runner-up in the 800-meter run indoors last year and had failed to register a qualifier this year until last weekend. Her ability to return the top five will be critical in the Lady Tigers’ quest to regain the national crown.
“We’ve got the kind of athletes that are capable of stepping up and doing something very big, performing beyond what they’ve done to get here,” said Henry. “That’s what it takes to be successful at this meet. You have to do what you’ve done to get here and just a little bit more.”
The men’s team will be paced by Russ Buller who has been an All-American in the pole vault at the last three NCAA Indoor Championships, including a runner-up finish a year ago. Demonstrating a consistency superior to his previous years, Buller enters the meet ranked second, but has been picked by Trackwire to claim his first national crown.
Buller can become only the second man in LSU history to earn All-American honors four straight years in an event and the first to do so indoors. Mikael Olander was a four-time All-American in the decathlon from 1985-88.
Ask anyone for a review of the new Randal Tyson Track Center facility and no one will give it more praise than Tiger jumper Marcus Thomas. Two weeks ago at this very facility, he was crowned SEC champion in the long jump with a jump better than a foot over his previous best mark. A day later he came up with a personal best effort in the triple jump and finished second.
Thomas ranks in the top six in the nation in both events heading into this weekend and will try to become the first LSU man to score in both events at the NCAA Indoor meet.
Derrick Brew and Lueroy Colquhoun enter as two of the hottest names in the men’s 400-meter dash field. Brew finished third at the NCAA Indoor meet a year ago, while Colquhoun finished second at the SEC meet two weeks ago, breaking Brew’s school record in the event.
In addition, Brew and Colquhoun join with Deryell Patterson and Wynand Dempers to form a 4×400-meter relay team that enters this weekend ranked sixth in the nation. The Tigers have not scored in the mile relay indoors since 1996.
“We’ve had some good men’s groups in the past, but this team has an opportunity to extremely successful,” added Henry. “We’ve never been able to put it all together on the men’s side at this meet, but this team has an opportunity to do something that none of their predecessors have done.”