BATON ROUGE — The top-ranked LSU women’s track and field team and the 12th-ranked Tigers travel to Knoxville, Tenn., this weekend for the SEC Outdoor Championships.
The meet will be held at UT’s Tom Black Track with competition beginning Thursday and concluding Sunday. This will mark the first time in 10 years that Tennessee has played host to the event as the Vols last welcomed the conference’s best to Knoxville in 1993.
This weekend’s competition will be one of the finest in the nation as eight of the 11 men’s teams are ranked among the top 15 in the nation and four of the 12 women’s teams are listed among the top 10 in the country.
Tennessee enters the meet as the defending men’s champion after knocking off Arkansas who had won the 10 previous outdoor conference titles. On the women’s side, Florida won last year’s championship crown, taking it away from Arkansas who had won the two previous titles.
A year ago, both the Tigers and Lady Tigers recorded fourth-place team finishes. LSU will look to make a significant impact in the team standings this weekend as it men’s and women’s team combine to bring eight SEC-leading marks as well as 11 additional performances ranked in the top three in the conference to the championship meet.
LSI also returns four individual conference champions from a year ago. The Lady Tigers return short sprint champions, Muna Lee and Stephanie Durst in the 100 meters and 200 meters, respectively, as well as 100-meter hurdles champion, Lolo Jones, and triple jump winner Nicole Toney.
LSU also has several members from its both its women’s 4×100 and men’s 4×400 championship relays returning. Durst, Jones and Lee all return to defend their title in the 4×100, while Pete Coley and Robert Parham both return from last year’s 4×400 team.
Just a junior, Muna Lee will also have the rare opportunity to become just the second woman in SEC history to three-peat in the 100-meter dash. Lee won 100-meter titles in both her freshman and sophomore campaigns and enters the meet as the heavy favorite in the event once again, owning an NCAA-leading time of 11.04 (10.97w).
Following the SEC Championships, the LSU track and field team will take a weekend off before preparing for its first ever NCAA Regional Championships, May 29-June 1, in Columbus, Ohio.