LSU track and field coach Dennis Shaver wants his teams to take a big leap this weekend with the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships starting in two weeks.After returning home Sunday from New York’s New Balance Collegiate Invitational, the Tigers and Lady Tigers traveled Thursday to Fayetteville, Ark., to prepare for the Tyson Invitational.”This is another one of those high-quality meets in an excellent facility where the NCAA meet has been for the last 6 or 7 years indoors,” Shaver said.But Shaver wants to make sure his athletes aren’t burned out for the championships.”The difficult task is trying to get them to improve to try to reach performances that are going to help us in the championship meet, and at the same time, when you get to the championship meet … they’re not so exhausted from the travel and the competition that they can’t produce their best performances of the season,” Shaver said. The No. 8 Tigers enter Arkansas with the same ranking they started the season. The No. 5 Lady Tigers have fallen three spots back from their No. 2 preseason ranking.”We, as a team, particularly on the women’s side, I just think they’ve got to show more heart from top to bottom,” Shaver said. “They’ve got to be better competitors. That’s what I’m going to be looking for at Arkansas.”Shaver said he has been pleased with LSU junior Samantha Henry’s recent performances. Henry set NCAA provisional qualifying times in the 200 meters (23.61 seconds) and the 60 meters (7.33 seconds) at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational last weekend.”I was really happy with her focus and her effort [in New York]. That was good because I thought she really struggled in the first meet here at home, and when we went to [Texas] A&M it just didn’t look much better, so I was happy to see that.”Henry will be run the 60-meter dash, where she finished third at the Tyson Invitational last year with a time of 7.25 seconds. Joining her will be former LSU star Muna Lee and U.S. Olympian Marshevet Hooker.”As we move on now to Arkansas we’re going to look for some other people to try and step up,” Shaver said.LSU senior long jumper Andrea Linton looks to improve on her standout performance at last year’s Tyson Invitational. She set an automatic qualifying mark for the NCAA Championships at the meet with a personal best 44-foot triple jump and an indoor personal best in the long jump at 20 feet, 5 1/4 inches.LSU junior sprinter Trindon Holliday has dominated the 60-meter dash to this point, running the fastest SEC time (6.56 seconds) twice this season. He faces fierce competition this weekend in U.S. Olympians Shawn Crawford, Travis Padgett, Darvis Patton, Terrence Trammell and Michael Rodgers, who enters with the fastest time in the world (6.51). However, Holliday remains confident.”I feel great,” Holliday said. “I feel better than I felt my first three years here.”Friday night’s action is scheduled to broadcast nationally Sunday on ESPN from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on a tape-delay basis.”They’ve been training hard,” Shaver said. “We’re excited. It’s going to be a good meet.”—-Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]