Take your marks. Get set. And then the starting gun sounds.
The LSU track and field team prepare these words as they host the Battle of the Bayou at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium on Saturday.
LSU looks to keep the momentum after highlighting the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays on April 1-2. with big wins for both the Tigers and Lady Tigers at the Mike A. Myers Stadium on Saturday.
“It’s still so early in the season, so there’s some things we know we have to work on to run the way we know we can run over the course of the season,” LSU coach Dennis Shaver said in a press release on April 2.
The Tigers are among the top 10 rankings at number five on the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Rankings.
The Tigers walked away with a NCAA-leading time in the 4×400-meter relay of 3:01.83 on Saturday. The Lady Tigers finished with sprint relay double wins in the 4×100-meter at second place with a time 43.25 seconds, and the 4×200-meter relays with a national leading time of 1:31.30.
Junior LaMar Bruton, senior Fitzroy Dunkley, senior Cyril Grayson and junior Michael Cherry made up the 4×400-meter relay team to walk away with their fastest time in the history of the Texas Relays.
Junior Jordan Moore, freshman Jaron Flournoy, junior Tinashe Mutanga and junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake teamed to run a season-opening time of 39.33 at the Hurricane Twilight in Miami on March 25.
The Tigers’ time placed LSU among the NCAA’s top five in the first weeks of the 2016 outdoor season.
“To win a championship is a team thing so at the end of the day if I don’t win and my teammate wins, I also won. … We work hard,” Mutanga said.
Moore will also compete in another event, the men’s 110-meter hurdles. He enters with the No. 8 national ranking with a time of 13.68 seconds made at the Hurricane Twilight as well.
Moore said being at LSU should give them an advantage over the other traveling teams but also said the crowd, including family and friends won’t faze him.
“They don’t really shock me,” Moore said. “I go out there and have fun. I train like I’m actually at the meet every day so it’s nothing really new to me. I go out there and execute and do what my coach tells me to do and keep it going.”
Battle of the Bayou will feature the Southeastern, Alabama, No. 24 Mississippi State, No. 15 Ohio State, Purdue, Kansas State and Oklahoma.