BATON ROUGE — LSU’s track and field team opens the indoor home schedule Saturday when it welcomes 24 teams to the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse for the Purple Tiger Invitational.
Field events will begin at 9:30 a.m., while running events are scheduled to follow at 11 a.m.
Competition will come from throughout the South and include 11 in-state schools in Loyola, LSU, McNeese State, New Orleans, Nicholls State, Northwestern State, UL-Monroe, UL-Lafayette, SE Louisiana, Tulane and Xavier.
Head coach Pat Henry plans to get many of his athletes some quality experience on the track this weekend, while also choosing to rest a select few.
“We plan to run a lot of people in a lot of positions,” said Henry. “We won’t overdue it, but we need to get ourselves in position to be where we can be successful in the upcoming month.”
Henry and staff won’t be doubling their athletes this weekend, but instead are choosing to compete most of them in just a single event, with particular concentration on the field events.
All-Americans LeJuan Simon and Daniel Trosclair will each be in action for the Tigers. Simon, who automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships in the triple jump last weekend, will take a stab at the long jump, while Trosclair will look to better himself in the pole vault after clearing a personal-best 17-8 ? last week.
Nicole Toney and LaToya Payne will be among the many field event competitors for the Lady Tigers. Toney, the 2003 national runner-up in the indoor triple jump, eyes an NCAA automatic mark in the event, while Payne will also be seeking NCAA qualifying standards after finishing third in the long jump last week.
On the track, LSU plans to run All-SEC hurdler RaNysha LeBlanc in the 60-meter hurdles, while All-Americans Monique Hall, Nadia Davy and Hazelann Regis are all scheduled to run in the 200 meters.
Following the Purple Tiger Invitational, the LSU track and field team will continue competition at home as it hosts the Bayou Bengal Invitational, Fri., Jan. 30.