BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field team will get its first peek of the season at the facility that will host both the SEC and NCAA Indoor Championships this year when its travels to Fayetteville, Ark., Friday for the two-day Razorback Invitational.
The meet will host some of the top talent in the country as Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss and Texas A&M highlight the field of competitors.
“Based on our training and the competition from last weekend we were able to get a measure as to where we are at last week,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “This weekend there will a little better competition, in a little better facility so we are hoping to build on what we have already established.”
It will be the first time this season the team will run on a banked track, the same surface it will run on at both the conference and national championships.
“Some of our athletes have never run on a banked track before so this is going to be a great introduction for them,” said Shaver. “We are hoping it will be springboard for later meets in Idaho and New York that will also feature banked tracks.”
Many of the Tigers and Lady Tigers will be running their first open races of the year after beginning the season with performances in the relay events last weekend.
Olympian Kelly Willie will run the 200 meters on Friday, while Neisha Bernard-Thomas, the defending NCAA champion in the outdoor 800 meters, will run her first half-mile race of the season.
LSU will also see its first performances of the year from freshman Kelly Baptiste, Jessica Ohanaja and Richard Thompson. All mid-year entrants to the program, Baptiste and Thompson are each expected to run the 60-meter dash, while Ohanaja will run in the 60-meter hurdles.
Following the Razorback Invitational, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will return to Baton Rouge to host the Bayou Bengal Invitational, Jan. 28, at the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse.