TEAM SAGA: LSU Tigers are faced with individual challenges within the team

Annual Purple Tiger meet to kick off indoor season for LSU track and field teams

The LSU track and field teams will once again kick off their indoor season with the LSU Purple Tiger meet on Friday in the Carl Maddox Field House.

The one-day competition will signal for collegians and some pros the start of an extremely long season, which include the 2024 Paris Olympics. The track and field events will take place Aug. 1-11.

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The Purple Tiger will get under way in the field at 10:30 a.m. with track events joining in at 1 p.m.

Host LSU, which will have 56 athletes (24 men, 32 women) line up for their season debut, will be joined by seven other Louisiana schools — Southern, UL, Southeastern, Nicholls State, UNO, UL-Monroe and McNeese State.

Other schools competing are South Alabama, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Mobile and Meridian (Miss.) Community College.

While LSU coach Dennis Shaver will have 20 newcomers competing as he begins his 20th season as head coach, a trio of veteran Tigers named this week to the preseason Bowerman Award watch list will be in the spotlight.

Alia Armstrong will line up in the women’s 60-meter hurdles for the first time since 2022 when she set an LSU record and Michaela Rose, an 800-meter specialist, will be competing in the mile for training purposes.

Armstrong was third in the NCAA outdoor 100-meter hurdles last June, while Rose won the 800 in 1 minute, 59.83 seconds.

LSU Track & Field on X: ".@AleiaBitOfThis sets a Carl Maddox Field House facility record with a time of 7.10 in the 60 meter dash! @brisceauxxx (7.17) takes silver and @FavOfili takes

Armstrong and Rose are the school record-holders in their respective indoor events. Armstrong has an all-time best of 7.81 seconds and Rose has clocked a time of 2:00.18.

Also, Godson Oghenebrume is scheduled to race in the men’s 60 meters Friday after clocking a personal-record time of 6.58 seconds in the event a year ago.

Oghenebrume went on to finish second in the 100 meters at the NCAA outdoor championships with a wind-legal time of 9.90 seconds — just off the school record of 9.89 held by Olympic medalist Richard Thompson.

Friday’s meet will mark the first of seven regular-season indoor meets before the SEC indoor championships and NCAA indoor meet.

The next and final home meet of the indoor season will be the LSU Twilight, which is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 16.