Indoor track and field season is heating up, and the competition will be fierce in Arkansas this weekend as Ole Miss heads to the nationally televised Razorback Invitational.
In addition to 18 ranked men’s and women’s teams, the field of athletes at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville will include 14 NCAA event leaders and seven reigning NCAA indoor champions.
The meet will air live on SEC Network+ on Friday (6-7:30 p.m. CT) and nationally on SEC Network on Saturday (1-4:30 p.m. CT).
Eighteen nationally ranked squads will be among the field. Women’s teams include No. 2 Arkansas, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 USC, No. 5 Florida, No. 7 LSU, No. 14 Oklahoma State, No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 17 Tennessee, No. 24 South Carolina, Auburn, Mississippi State, Missouri, Texas A&M and Wake Forest. Men’s teams are No. 1 Florida, No. 3 LSU, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Arkansas, No. 10 USC, No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 17 Oklahoma State, No. 19 South Carolina, Auburn, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss and Wake Forest.
The 16th-ranked Rebel women have their highest indoor national ranking since 2008 and have been led early by junior throwers Raven Saunders and Janeah Stewart.
The men are slowly introducing more distance runners into the indoor track fray after coming off a sensational cross country season where they climbed all the way to a fourth-place national finish.
Head coach Connie Price-Smith said the team is looking forward to competing at the invitational this weekend.
“It will be an amazing competition, and I am looking for us to have some good performances,” Price-Smith said. “We are excited to get some TV exposure for college track and field on the SEC Network. We hope many Ole Miss fans and followers of track and field will be able to tune in on Saturday afternoon.”
Notables:
- Head coach Connie Price-Smith, who served as Team USA women’s head coach in Rio and was elected to the USATF Hall of Fame in 2016, is in her second season at the Ole Miss helm.
- The Rebel women are No. 16 in this week’s USTFCCCA national rankings, their highest indoor ranking since 2008.
- After two weekends of competition, an Ole Miss school record has already fallen four times– twice by Janeah Stewart in the women’s weight throw, as well as Shelby Brown in the women’s mile and Brian Williams in the men’s shot put.
- Stewart has set PRs in both the weight throw and shot put this season after a JUCO career that saw her win four individual national titles and nine All-America nods… She currently ranks third nationally in the weight throw (school-record 21.86m/71-8.75) and 16th in the shot put (16.13m/52-11).
- Raven Saunders tops the NCAA in the women’s shot put with a world-leading 19.10m/62-8, the fifth-best mark in NCAA indoor history.
- After just two meets, Saunders owns the NCAA’s top six shot put marks of the season – 19.10m, 18.71, 18.61, 18.45, 18.43, 18.28… Only two other women in the world have thrown 18 meters in 2017, both professionals.
- Williams, a JUCO transfer, produced a school-record shot put of 18.83m/61-9.5 in the season opener that ranks him seventh nationally this year … It was a five-foot improvement on his previous indoor PR from last year.
- Following last week’s Rod McCravy Memorial, Ole Miss boasts three of the top 12 men’s milers in the NCAA this year– Sean Tobin (5th, 4:01.18), Robert Domanic (10th, 4:02.36) and Trevor Gilley (12th, 4:02.49).
- The Rebels are coming off a breakthrough 2016 cross country season, with the men finishing fourth nationally and the women 23rd, both program bests.
