BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field teams will compete at home for the second straight week as they welcome 15 collegiate squads to Baton Rouge to participate in this year’s edition of the LSU Tiger Classic on Saturday at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
The meet is scheduled to get underway at 11:30 a.m. with the men’s and women’s long jump competition followed by a brief opening ceremony 2:28 p.m. and the afternoon’s first running event with the women’s 4×100-meter relay at 2:30 p.m.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers are coming off of a successful weekend at the LSU Tiger Relays a week ago where they combined for 21 new regional qualifiers as 18 athletes and three relay teams secured their spot in the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships. LSU has now qualified 23 entries into the regional meet, which will be held in Columbia, Mo., on May 25-26.
“We’re looking for more consistency from our athletes as we try to follow up a great home meet last weekend with the LSU Tiger Relays,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “It’s just another step in our progression as we try to build momentum moving through the rest of the season.”
A number of athletes will open the outdoor season in their respective specialty events this weekend after earning All-America honors during the indoor season, which wrapped up at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., just three weeks ago.
Junior Kelly Baptiste will lead the Lady Tigers as she opens the season in the 200 meters after qualifying for the regional meet with the nation’s fastest wind-legal time in the 100-meter dash at 11.22 seconds last weekend. Baptiste earned her ninth career All-America honor as she was the national runner-up in the 200 at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
The Lady Tigers will also feature a number of All-Americans from a year ago as fellow junior Brooklynn Morris will join Baptiste in the 200, junior Deonna Lawrence lines up in the 400, junior Andrea Linton competes in the triple jump and sophomore Nickiesha Wilson makes her collegiate debut in the 400-meter hurdles.
The men’s team will feature a pair of indoor All-Americans as senior Alleyne Lett takes to the track in the 110-meter hurdles and freshman Will Coppage makes his outdoor collegiate debut in the long jump after finishing fifth at the NCAA meet during the indoor season.
Senior Isa Phillips will also make his season debut in the 400-meter hurdles after earning All-America honors in the event with a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships a season ago, while sophomore Trindon Holliday is scheduled to see his first action in 2007 by running the lead leg on LSU’s 4×100-meter relay team.
“This will be a great opportunity for many of our athletes to really compete in their event for the first time this season,” Shaver said. “It’ll be exciting to see Isa and Nickiesha run the 400 hurdles for the first time because they have the potential to score some big points for us at NCAAs.
“We’ll also be working on a number of relay combinations before we go to meets like the Texas Relays and Penn Relays in the coming weeks. We’re in the process right now of developing some depth and some consistency in those events, and there will be some great competition with the men and the women with everyone fighting for position.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers will hit the road for the first time during the outdoor season next weekend as they travel to Austin, Texas, to compete in the prestigious Texas Relays from April 5-7 at Mike A. Myers Stadium. This year’s event will be the 80th edition of one of the nation’s premier collegiate track meets hosted by the University of Texas.