BATON ROUGE – An early season dual meet with the two-time defending NCAA Outdoor champion Texas A&M Aggies highlights an exciting indoor season for the LSU track and field teams as head coach Dennis Shaver announced the team’s slate of indoor meets for the 2011 season.
After playing host to the Purple Tiger Invitational on Jan. 15 to kick off the 2011 indoor season, LSU will head to College Station, Texas, on Jan. 22 to compete in the LSU vs. Texas A&M Dual at the Gilliam Indoor Stadium, which is also the host venue for the 2011 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
The dual meet is an early season bout between NCAA heavyweights as both LSU and Texas A&M figure into the national championship picture during the 2011 indoor season.
LSU was outstanding during the indoor season a year ago as both the Tigers and Lady Tigers earned team trophies with top-four finishes at the NCAA Indoor Championships held at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark. The Lady Tigers were third place and the Tigers were fourth place at the meet with the Texas A&M men taking second place and women taking fifth place nationally.
“When we put together this year’s indoor schedule, we wanted to give our team a chance to compete in an NCAA Championship type of environment each time we are on the road,” Shaver said. “We will certainly see that kind of competition when we go to College Station for the Texas A&M dual meet.
“Texas A&M is a national championship contender again this season, so this will give our teams a chance to see exactly where they stack up early in the season. We are looking forward to such a great challenge.”
LSU will follow its dual meet with Texas A&M with another championship caliber competition from Jan. 28-29 at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville as the teams are set to compete at the Razorback Invitational. The meet will host an NCAA Championship caliber field featuring nine of the premier men’s and women’s teams in the country along with LSU, including Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Nebraska, Oregon, Stanford, TCU and Texas. The meet will be a performance-based event.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers will then make their annual trip to The Armory in New York from Feb. 4-5 to compete in a scored meet against more than 100 universities from across the country at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational before returning to Fayetteville on Feb. 11-12 for the Tyson Invitational.
After playing host to its second home meet of the indoor season at the LSU Twilight on Feb. 18, LSU will kick off the championship season with its third trip to Fayetteville during the indoor campaign to compete for conference supremacy at the 2010 SEC Indoor Track & Field Championships.
The teams will then wrap up the indoor season in College Station with an eye on a national championship as they compete in the 2010 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships at Texas A&M.
“This is probably the most exciting indoor schedule that we’ve put together in my time as a head coach at LSU,” Shaver said. “We feel like we’ve put together a schedule that will prepare our student-athletes when we go on the road to compete at the highest level in the championship meets. We look forward to an outstanding season again in 2011 as we expect to compete for a national championship once again.”