Fourth Place Finish At SEC Championships Not As Much Cause For Concern As Some Would Believe
By Fred J. Demarest
LSUsports.net
At first glance, a fourth place finish by the LSU women’s track and field team at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships last weekend would appear to be a major chink in the armor of a team that has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for nearly the entire season. In reality, however, the Lady Tigers are almost exactly where they need to be with the NCAA Indoor Championships coming up from March 10-11 in Fayetteville, Ark.
The Lady Tigers finished out of the top two at the conference meet for the first time in over 15 years. But it takes a very different kind of effort to win the SEC meet as opposed to the NCAA meet and LSU’s top level athletes continued to excel at the conference championships, giving the Lady Tigers strong hope as they try to regain the title they last held in 1997.
“Each competition is different and it takes a different kind of discipline to win the NCAA title than it does the SEC,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We’ve got a very strong group qualified for the national meet, a number of people who can make a big impact and that’s what it takes.”
It makes little sense that a team that finished fourth at a conference meet could still be in the mix for the national title, but this is why. The SEC and NCAA Championships are two completely different competitions. On the conference level each team brings 27 athletes to the competition. It is an even field for every team and very often it is not the five best athletes on any given team that make the difference, but the middle tier athletes that provide the overall depth to be successful.
The Lady Tigers are not as deep as some other teams in the format designed for the conference championship. This team is a perfect fit for the NCAA meet, however. On the NCAA level individuals have to qualify and it is a matter of quality over quantity. On the NCAA level it is not as much a case of depth, but quality athletes that can score big points. LSU has those athletes.
Start with defending NCAA Indoor 200-meter champion Peta-Gaye Dowdie, who appears to be the clear favorite to defend her title in the deuce with the fastest time in the nation this year. She will also be among a short list of favorites in the 60-meter dash. Last weekend she became the first 60/200-meter double winner at the SEC meet since former Lady Tiger D’Andre Hill pulled the double in 1996. Now she will attempt to become the first woman to pull the double at the NCAA meet since Holli Hyche of Indiana State in 1994.
Joining Dowdie on the track is defending NCAA 60-meter hurdles champion Joyce Bates. While she has yet to perform to the level of her school record setting 8.02 of a year ago, she is still a strong threat to be a top-five performer in Fayetteville. In addition, the Lady Tigers return three out of four runners on a 4×400-meter relay team that finished third in the nation a year ago.
In the field, the Lady Tigers will be paced by Keisha Spencer, who is as big a favorite to win the triple jump as any athlete is in any event this year. Spencer has the top five jumps in the nation in the triple jump and will also be a threat in the long jump, as she placed third at the SEC
Indoor Championships a week ago and was an indoor All-American a year ago.
Add Monique Freeman who finished fourth in the long jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships last year and all of a sudden, if everyone performs to their capabilities, the Lady Tigers are as strong a team as anyone in the nation.
A year ago the Lady Tigers scored 57 points in their runner-up finish to Texas. They return 50
+ of those points this year. In reality, it will probably only take 45-50 points to win the title with the number of teams as closely aligned as they are this year. Texas, UCLA, South Carolina, Arkansas and Villanova all appear to have teams capable of making a run at the title.
But the Lady Tigers have that kind of point capability as well and the ability to turn it up a notch at the big meets. And if they needed another reminder of just how different the SEC and NCAA competitions are, on six occasions the Lady Tigers gone on to win the NCAA title after not winning the SEC crown.
If they put everything together in Fayetteville next weekend, that just may happen again.