BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU track and field team is back for their season-opening LSU Purple Tiger meet, hosted indoors at the Carl Maddox Field House on Friday, January 17. There will be no live streams available and the meet is free for anyone to attend.
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The Tigers will have 67 student-athletes (33 men, 34 women) competing this weekend at the LSU Purple Tiger. The meet is set to start at 9:00 a.m. CT with the women’s weight throw Friday morning. Track events will start later on at 12:00 p.m. CT with the men’s 60-meter hurdles.
A total of 25 newcomers will be making their track & field debut for the Tigers this weekend.
True freshman set to make their first appearances on Friday are Laila Campbell, Ahry Comer, Gabrielle Cunningham, Jolie Dormus-Bayer, Kam Franklin, Josiah Gaynor, Ava Gumb, Makeriah Harris, Jenna Key, Emedy Kiplimo, Anna Pierce, Dillon Reidenauer, Thomas Rogers, Yuya Sawada, Taylor Tarpley, Natalie Venkataraman, Michael Vocke and Nasya Williams.
The new transfer additions performing in the purple and gold for the first time will be Sophia Jungling, Emerald Kehr, Machaeda Linton, Jayden Phillip, Gregory Prince and Jordan Turner.
What to Watch for on Friday
The men’s 60-meter hurdle duo, Matthew Sophia and Jahiem Stern, will be making their debuts after a successful 2024 campaign together. The duo will start their day off in the 60mh semifinals set to start at noon. Last year Sophia clocked a personal-best time of 7.67 seconds (LSU No. 5) at the Tyson Invitational, while Stern recorded a PR of 7.73 (LSU No. 8) at the UNM Collegiate Classic and LSU Twilight.
A University of Kentucky record holder and one of the top long jumpers in the nation, Jordan Turner, will make his much-anticipated debut at noon on Friday. The junior enters this meet with an indoor PR of 7.90 meters (25’ 11”), which he reached last season in his one season with Florida State. The new Tiger will need a jump of at least 7.97 meters to enter the LSU all-time top-10 list.
At 12:10 p.m. CT the women’s 60-meter hurdle group will begin their season on the purple track. The Tigers will be looking to resume their dominance in the hurdles as they graduated three in Alia Armstrong, Shani’a Bellamy and Leah Phillips after the 2024 season. Freshmen Gabriella Cunningham and Makeriah Harris will look to burst onto the scene in their first meet. In high school, Cunningham held a PR of 8.41 seconds and Harris held a PR of 8.37.
The Sprint-U members will look to live up to the name on Friday with the women’s 60-meter semifinals at 12:25 p.m. and the men’s 60m semifinals at 12:55 p.m. The four sprinters on the women’s side taking a run in the event will be Aniyah Bigam, Tima Godbless, Nasya Williams and Laila Campbell. The men’s side will be contested by Godson Oghenebrume and Jaiden Reid. The 60m finals will be at 2:25 p.m. for the women and 2:30 p.m. for the men.
Senior Kuda Chadenga will look to have another great collegiate season as he takes on high jump at 12:30 p.m. The Zimbabwean holds and indoor PR of 2.26 meters (7’ 5”), but was only able to clear the height of 2.12 meters (6’ 11.5”) indoors last season.
The women’s mile will consist of the LSU record holder, Lorena Rangel Batres, and the LSU No. 3 all-time runner, Michaela Rose. The Two Tigers will begin the race at 2:55 p.m. CT, and will be joined by many other Tigers including freshman Yuya Sawada. Sawada has yet to compete in the mile in her young career, but she holds a personal-best time of 4:12.87 in the 1500 meter from the World Athletics U20 Championships in 2022.
Friday’s meet will mark the first of seven regular-season indoor meets before the SEC Indoor Championships and NCAA Indoor Championships. The next and final home meet of the indoor season will be the LSU Twilight on Friday, February 21.
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