BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field team will host its final meet of the season Friday evening at the LSU Last Ditch at Bernie Moore Track Stadium, a meet designed to give athletes close to the NCAA qualifying standard one last chance to make the field for the NCAA Championships.
Field events will get underway at 4 p.m., while running events start at 5:30 p.m.
“It’s one last opportunity for a number of athletes to get something done and get into the national meet,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We’re in pretty good shape in terms of qualifying athletes overall, but there are a couple of people that we think we can get in this weekend.”
Those close to the NCAA standard that need to improve are Alex Forst in the discus, J.J. Barton in the high jump, Sa’Donna Thornton in the 100-meter dash and Bianca Rockett and Chenelle Marshall in the long jump.
Several athletes are sitting on the bubble and could stand to improve their times a little bit on Friday, such as April Sams in the 100-meter hurdles and both the men’s and women’s 4×400-meter relays.
The deadline to qualify for the NCAA Championships is Saturday night. Qualifiers for the national meet will be announced next Thursday evening.
The NCAA Championships will be held in Durham, N.C., from May 31-June3. The Lady Tigers finished fifth a year ago, while the Tigers finished ninth.
Both teams currently rank third in the nation.