The Southeastern Conference indoor championships are this weekend in Gainesville, Fla., and the LSU men and women’s track team will attempt to add to its list of SEC titles as well as its list of national qualifiers.
With two meets remaining before indoor nationals, the men’s team has accumulated four automatic qualifying marks and nine provisional qualifying marks while the defending national championship women’s team has eight automatic and nine provisional qualifying marks.
“Sixteen people compete in each event,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “It’s the best 16 in each event.”
Henry said if only nine athletes automatically qualify, the top seven provisional scores will fill the remaining seven spots and compete at nationals. If 17 athletes automatically qualify, then the field of 16 will increase to 17.
He said it is very rare for more than 16 athletes to automatically qualify for nationals considering the difficult standards set upon each event.
Henry said the team has fulfilled expectations thus far, relative to the number of qualifiers, but with two meets remaining for the indoor season, Henry said anything can happen.
“The big teams in nationals may have anywhere from eight to 12 to 14 athletes competing,” Henry said. “But we’ve won it with six and even five. It really is the quality and not the quantity. I’ve seen times where an athlete has the 10th best time in the country with two meets remaining, and they end up 32nd by the time of nationals. These next meets are real important.”
These track athletes have posted qualifying marks for indoor nationals, either automatically or provisionally. They seek to improve on their respective time and national ranking in the next two meets.