The LSU track and field team is going into its final meet before the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships with one goal in mind: to polish performances in several events before going on a much bigger stage next weekend.The No. 6 Tigers and No. 9 Lady Tigers host the LSU Twilight today, and LSU coach Dennis Shaver said the meet will include about half of the events.”We’re going to run those people who need tuning up,” he said. “Some of the kids need another race under their belt in [the 60-meter dash] or [60-meter hurdles], long jump, triple jump or high jump.”LSU will feature two Tigers and five Lady Tigers looking to build on their NCAA provisional qualifying marks.Senior Jeremy Hicks is No. 12 nationally in the long jump, and junior Josh Dominguez has set seasonal bests in his last two meets in the pole vault.Junior Samantha Henry and sophomore Kenyanna Wilson are among the Lady Tigers participating. Henry and Wilson are No. 7 and No. 16 in the nation in the 60-meter dash, respectively.Shaver said freshman pole vaulter Rachel Laurent and freshman sprinter Robert Simmons are among those who will have the night off.”The bottom line is we have to try to do what’s in our best interest to have [the teams] ready to perform in the conference meet,” Shaver said. “[The LSU Twilight] just doesn’t fit in to what we think we need to do with most of them to have them ready for the conference championship.”Laurent set an indoor school record in the pole vault with an NCAA automatic qualifying mark of 13 feet, 9 1/4 inches in the Tyson Invitational this past weekend in Fayetteville, Ark. The mark tied her high school personal best.”Rachel Laurent is one of the best high school pole vaulters in the history of the sport,” Shaver said. “I’m not all that terribly surprised she’s performing at that level … We would expect an individual would be equaling their previous indoor best by this time of the year, but what makes it special is she’s achieving it as a freshman.”Shaver said Simmons is becoming more confident in his event. Simmons surpassed his personal best at the Tyson Invitational by more than one second when he ran the 400-meter dash in 46.55 seconds, finishing third in the race.”It’s been a bit of an up-and-down thing as you would expect it to be, but at [the Tyson Invitational] … he was able to run a pretty decent time for a freshman,” Shaver said. “When he lines up, he lines up to win races in his mind. That’s important because a lot of kids, especially their freshman year, are just trying to survive, but he’s doing more than that.”Fifteen universities from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will participate in Friday’s meet.”Most schools don’t come here because they know they can’t really get much done because of the kind of facility we have,” Shaver said.——Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]