BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field teams return home after a pair of outstanding performances in Arkansas this past weekend to host the LSU Combined Events and the Bayou Bengal Invitational beginning Thursday at the Maddox Fieldhouse.
The LSU Combined Events, which includes competition in the women’s pentathlon and men’s heptathlon, is scheduled for Thursday and Friday beginning at 3 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively.
Action at the Bayou Bengal Invitational is slated to begin Friday at 3 p.m. with the field events followed by the first events on the track at 6 p.m.
The Lady Tigers enter the meet ranked No. 1 in the country while the Tigers are ranked No. 10 in the latest coaches’ poll released on Tuesday. The squads have raced out of the blocks in the first two weeks of the indoor season by combining for five automatic qualifiers and 11 provisional qualifiers to the NCAA Indoor Championships.
“We’ve opened the season with two really good meets, and we’ll have a chance for some of our athletes to get their first taste of competition this weekend,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “We already have more NCAA qualifiers now than we did at this time last year. That just shows where our teams are at right now and how competitive they’ve shown the last two weeks.”
Making their season debut for the Tigers will be two-sport standouts Trindon Holliday and Ricky Jean-Francois as Holliday will line up in the 60-meter dash and Jean-Francois will compete in the shot put at the Bayou Bengal Invitational on Friday.
The duo is making the transition to track and field after leading the LSU football team to a 38-24 victory over Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans on Jan. 7.
Holliday, who is competing indoors for the first time since 2006, burst onto the national scene a year ago when he set a new school record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.02 seconds in the national semifinal at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championships before finishing as the NCAA runner-up in the event behind Walter Dix of Florida State.
Jean-Francois is also scheduled to see his first action since his freshman season in 2006 when he posted a seasonal best mark of 60 feet, 1 ? inches to earn All-SEC honors in the shot put with a second-place finish in the event at the SEC Indoor Championships.
The Miami native is joining the track and field team after earning Defensive MVP honors for his performance in the BCS National Championship Game where he recorded six tackles, 1 ? tackles for loss and blocked a field goal in the Tigers’ victory.
“We’re just looking to get Trindon and Ricky into a low-key meet to see where their fitness is at right now for their events,” Shaver said. “We’re excited about them competing for us this spring.
“They’re really going to be able to help us when we get into the championship meets. We’re just looking for them to shake off a little rust, especially Ricky because he hasn’t thrown in two years. He obviously showed great potential as a freshman with his performance at the SEC meet, and we feel like he can achieve even greater things this season.”
Also making his debut in the 60-meter hurdles at the Bayou Bengal Invitational is sophomore transfer Patrick Lee, who was the nation’s premier hurdler at the junior college level during a brilliant two-year career at South Plains College in 2006-07.
Lee led the Texans to their first outdoor national championship as a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association a year ago after winning individual titles in the 110 hurdles and 400 hurdles. He was named the Male Track Athlete of the Meet for his performance.
“Patrick is a guy who is really going to give us some depth in the hurdles this year along with Ryan Fontenot,” Shaver said. “We felt like he was ready to go in Arkansas last week, but he came down with a fever the day he was supposed to race. This will be his first real competition of the season, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what he can do this weekend.”
Among the Tiger standouts scheduled to join Holliday, Jean-Francois and Lee in the competition are Fontenot (60 hurdles), junior Rabun Fox (weight throw), sophomore Armanti Hayes (60 meters), sophomore Will Coppage (long jump) and freshman Zedric Thomas (triple jump).
Leading the squad at the LSU Combined Events on Thursday and Friday will be freshman Chris Bujol, who is making his first appearance of the season in the heptathlon.
Sophomore Katelyn Rodrigue is among the Lady Tigers scheduled to compete this weekend after opening the season with an NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 12-11 ? in the pole vault at the Purple Tiger Classic. She will be joined by the likes of seniors Kathy Coleman (long jump) and Brooklynn Morris (60 meters) and sophomore Kim Williams (weight throw).
After hosting the LSU Combined Events and the Bayou Bengal Invitational this weekend, the squads will make their annual trip to New York as they are among the more than 100 universities scheduled to compete in the prestigious New Balance Collegiate Invitational at the Armory Track and Field Center beginning Feb. 8.