BATON ROUGE — After two straight home meets, the LSU track and field team hits the road Saturday, traveling to Nampa, Idaho, for the Boise State-hosted United Heritage Invitational.
The meet will be held at Jacksons Track inside the Idaho Sports Complex. Action will begin at 10 a.m. (CT) will the field and events and continue at 11 a.m. with the running events.
13 teams are scheduled to test the Tigers’ talent this weekend, including Baylor, BYU, Stanford and UCLA who are all ranked among the nation’s top-15.
“This meet is one of the two or three very important qualifying meets for us,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “This facility is one that is very conducive to good performances and the level of competition is another factor that can contribute to great things happening.”
LSU will enter the meet ready to challenge the nation’s elite as all of its top sprinters, jumpers and throwers are scheduled to compete.
Five-time national champion, Muna Lee, will be making her season debut in the 200 meters along with All-Americans Stephanie Durst and Monique Hall.
Kelly Willie and Pete Coley will each run the 400 meters. Willie has already automatically qualified to the NCAA Championships in the 200 meters and will look to do the same in the 400, while Coley looks to improve on his provisional quarter-mile mark of 46.35 set at the season-opening Arkansas Invitational.
LSU will also run both its top 4×400-meter relay teams. Coley, Willie, Bennie Brazell and freshman Siraj Williams will likely take the track for the men, while Bernard-Thomas, Hall and Hazelann Regis will comprise three legs of the women’s relay with the fourth leg to be decided later.
LSU will run athletes in the 800 meters for the first time this season as All-American Neisha Bernard-Thomas and school record holder Jeffrey Fisher are each scheduled to run.
In the field events, LSU will jump Nicole Toney, LeJuan Simon, John Moffitt and Willie Bradley in the triple jump. Toney and Simon have already posted automatic marks in the event and Moffitt and Bradley look to join them.
Mallory McDonald and Katie McKeever headline the list of throwers eyeing NCAA automatic marks this weekend. McDonald will be competing in the weight throw, while McKeever will challenge the competition in the shot put.
Following the United Heritage Invitational, LSU will conclude its two-week road swing at the prestigious Armory Invitational in New York, Feb. 13-14.