BATON ROUGE — After both LSU men’s and women’s track and field teams began the outdoor season ranked the second in the nation, the Lady Tigers have vaulted to first and the Tigers have dropped to seventh this week in the latest Trackwire 25 power rankings, released Tuesday.
The Lady Tigers returned to nation’s top spot after spending just its second week of the season out of the No. 1 position. LSU was listed second to defending outdoor national champions South Carolina in last week’s inaugural outdoor poll and also fell to second in the standings during the week of Feb.4, behind conference foe Florida. The Lady Tigers No. 1 rankings marks the ninth time in 11 weeks they have sat atop the countries elite.
Falling to second this week in the women’s standing were the Gamecocks, who were listed with 62 points to the Lady Tigers 72 points. Big 12 competitor Texas rounded out the women’s top three with 50 points.
For the Tigers, their No. 7 ranking marks the first time all season they have dropped out of the top five. Prior to this week, LSU’s lowest ranking came during the week of March 4 when they held the countries No. 5 position.
SEC competitor Auburn holds onto the men’s No. 1 ranking for the second straight week with 50 points, while fellow conference schools Tennessee (48), Arkansas (45) and Mississippi State (44) follow close behind.
Both the Tiger and Lady Tiger track teams return to action this weekend when they travel to California to compete in either the Mt. SAC Relays in Claremont, April 17-19, or the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational, April 18, in Walnut.