The LSU women’s track and field team retained its place as the top-ranked dual-meet team in the nation on Wednesday, and on Saturday the Lady Tigers will face their toughest challenge to that ranking so far this season.
In their first scored event of the season, the Lady Tigers will square off against No. 2 Texas A&M and No. 5 Arkansas on Saturday in the Texas A&M Triangular meet.
“In every regular season meet, we’re just hoping that everyone can get a little bit better than what they did last week,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver. “I think the unique thing about this week, though, is that it gives our athletes an opportunity to get into a team scoring meet where the team is a factor.”
LSU competed in the Crimson Tide Indoor Opener last Saturday, but it didn’t field a full squad. Though the Lady Tigers are going against stiffer competition this weekend, LSU will continue to limit certain runners because it still needs much more training, Shaver said.
“We’re still going to pick and choose what we have our people doing,” Shaver said. “It’s a long season, and while this meet is a great opportunity for us to line up and do some things, we don’t have enough competitions under our belt to go into a meet like this and ask the athletes to do multiple events.”
One of the athletes running multiple events Saturday is senior sprinter Kimberlyn Duncan. In December, Duncan received collegiate track and field’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy when she received The Bowerman from the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Duncan took first place in the 60-meter sprint last weekend, but she didn’t compete in her best event, the 200-meter sprint. She is the two-time defending indoor and outdoor national champion in the 200-meter and will defend her title Saturday, running the event for the first time this season.
Duncan, who was placed on The Bowerman award’s watch list again for this season, is the early front-runner to become the first repeat winner in The Bowerman’s four-year history.
With the chance to further establish herself as one of the greatest runners in LSU history, Duncan said she knows other athletes will be nipping at her heels.
“It’s an honor to be back on the watch list, so I’m excited to see how my season goes,” Duncan said.
Duncan and the Lady Tigers are also out for redemption this season. The Lady Tigers were forced to vacate their 2012 NCAA Outdoor Team Championship after then-senior sprinter Semoy Hackett tested positive for the NCAA-banned stimulant Methylhexaneamine.
Duncan and the other members of the 4×100-meter relay team, of which Hackett was also a member, were required to return their individual event awards.
“We worked hard all season long to get to the end,” Duncan said. “I still say we won. The girls did a great job. Then, for that to happen, it hurt us, but we know that we still have to come out and do the same thing.”
On Saturday, the men’s team will also face a tough test, opposing a pair of top-10 teams in No. 1 Arkansas and No. 4 Texas A&M.
The Tigers picked up two individual event wins at the Crimson Tide Opener from sophomores Aaron Ernest and Quincy Downing in the 200-meters and 400-meters, respectively.
“We have some young athletes who are running extremely well,” Shaver said. “But we have some athletes that this is their second indoor meet of their career, so it’s difficult to judge what we’re expecting for the end of the year with the second meet.”
