BATON ROUGE- The LSU track and field team continues the early stages of its outdoor season Saturday afternoon, as they make their first west coast visit since 1997 at the USC “Centennial” Invitational at venerable Cromwell Field in Los Angeles, Calif.
The meet will be a four-way scored meet with host USC, Nebraska and North Carolina completing the field.
“The level of competition will be extremely high on Saturday,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “Anytime you put together quality programs with a quality facility and a great atmosphere it makes for tremendous competition. We got a lot accomplished last week in Baton Rouge and we feel like this meet will create a similar environment for success.”
Saturday’s meet is a renewal of one of the up and coming rivalries in this sports, as LSU and USC has faced off four of the last five years. A year ago the two teams split decisions in Baton Rouge.
LSU enters the meet on a tear after registering 15 NCAA qualifying marks in its home opener at Bernie Moore Stadium last week. Triple jumper Keisha Spencer, long jumper Monique Freeman and short hurdler Joyce Bates highlighted the outing with automatic qualifiers in their respective events.
The marks posted by Spencer and Freeman are the top jumps in the nation in their respective events, while Bates’ time in the hurdles ranks third.
The Lady Tigers won the team title at the U.S. Collegiate Series last weekend, while the Tigers finished second to Texas A&M. What was evident, however, was that the team race and not the individual accomplishments became the focal point of the competition, an atmosphere that will likely be duplicated in Los Angeles this weekend.
“With the U.S. Collegiate Series in its third year now, the team aspects of the competition are really starting to catch on,” added Henry. “That kind of atmosphere is a tremendous positive for this sport. That is exactly the kind of atmosphere we’ll be in this weekend. There will be four teams doing everything they can to win a team competition.”
While the first official outdoor rankings have yet to come out, both the men’s and women’s teams for LSU, USC and Nebraska are expected to appear in the top 10.
Following the USC Invitational, LSU will set its sites on the 73rd running of the prestigious Texas Relays in Austin from April 5-8.