Fresh off its sweep of the NCAA Indoor National Championships, the LSU men’s and women’s track and field team travelled to Texas A&M for its first outdoor meet of the year at the Frank G. Anderson Track and Field Complex in College Station, competing in its second day of the meet.
The Tigers entered the meet ranked No. 2 while the Lady Tigers are ranked No. 5.
Coach Pat Henry said team strength does not matter at this event.
“This event is for decathletes,” Henry said. “They’re over there running in 10 events for the first time of the semester because you don’t run a decathalon indoors. Just like you don’t throw a javelin indoors, so it is their first chance to throw the javelin. The team strength and history will not play any part in this.”
Henry said the athletes who competed in the indoor national championships are not competing this weekend. He said this is a good start for the athletes.
“We’ll find out a little bit about where we are and where we go from this,” Henry said.
Seventy-six athletes from 21 teams are scheduled to compete in the multi-events, while Texas A&M, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Southern Methodist, Rice, Wake Forest, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Northern Iowa, Northwestern State, Sam Houston, and Angelo State prepare for Saturday’s individual events.
The top teams scheduled for action are Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and host Texas A&M.
LSU athletes scheduled to compete in the multi-events include Gavin Fleming and Kwami Roberts for the Tigers and Megan Akre, Dianne Harrison and Julie Bertrand for the Lady Tigers.
The multi-events continue and the individual events take place on Saturday.
In the field competition, the javelin throwers will see their first action of the season as Maria Romero will throw for the Lady Tigers and Taylor Bobo and Patrick Perrien will throw for the Tigers.
After coming home from Texas A&M, The LSU track team will host its home-opener of the outdoor season in the LSU Tiger Relays on March 26-27 at Bernie Moore Track Stadium.