Louisiana Headed to Purple Tiger Invitational
The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns track and field team will officially open its 2018 indoor season on Friday when it travels to Baton Rouge to compete in the LSU Purple Tiger Invitational at Carl Maddox Field House.
Action begins with the men's weight throw at 10:30 a.m., with running events, beginning with the preliminaries of the men's 60-meter dash, set for 1 p.m. Live results will be available at RaginCajuns.com.
Joining Louisiana and host LSU in the season-opening meet is Alcorn State, Grambling, Hinds (Miss.) Community College, Southeastern Louisiana, Southern, Southern-New Orleans, Texas Southern, Texas State and Tulane.
Under seventh-year head coach Lon Badeaux, the Ragin' Cajuns head into their opening meets of the season to see where they are leading into the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships, scheduled for Feb. 19-20 in Birmingham, Ala.
"We're excited and ready to go," Badeaux said. "We're going into the LSU meet seeing where we're at as a team. After not being with the kids for a month, the first couple of meets, between LSU and Texas A&M, are really just evaluations of fitness. You want to see what the new kids can do, what kind of competitive nature they have. We're not going to put a whole lot of stock in how well we do early on. The early portion of the schedule is an evaluation to see where we go from here."
Louisiana's men's team comes off a third-place finish at the 2017 SBC Indoor Championships and returns a solid nucleus of potential all-conference performers, highlighted by sprinter Jeryl Brazil, distance runner Stanley Limoh, hurdler Tyler Hughes and field athletes Kyle Baudoin (pole vault), Richard Delphin (weight throw) and Damon Guidry (high jump).
Distance runners Courtney Musgrove, Claire Hodges and Lindsay LaGarde return to provide leadership to a women's team that battled injuries throughout the 2017 campaign. With the return of several athletes who missed the season due to injury, the Ragin' Cajuns expect to make strides during the next month of competition.
"On the men's side, we are a high quality team. I think we have a lot of talent. The question is going to be how much depth do we have. We're definitely a lot better on the women's side, we're a bit better of an outdoor team than an indoor team. We went through a really bad year last year with the women, so let's see if we can take a few steps forward."
The Ragin' Cajuns bolstered their roster on the men's side with transfers Anthony Taylor (Tulane), Jonathan Kimutai (Cardinal Stritch) and Kemondrick Walker (Hinds CC) and Sven Glueck, plus freshmen distance runners Andre Bellard, George Femmer and Conner Meche, sprinter Kameron Cummings, multi athlete Chandler Mixon and pole vaulter Matthew Standridge.
Newcomers expected to make their debut for the Ragin' Cajuns on the women's side include Frankie Griffin (high jump), Ally McCulley (distance), Helena Tibbs (triple jump), Victoria Wayne (distance) and Bailey Broussard (pole vault). Junior college transfers Maliya Crouch (shot put), former New Iberia Senior High product Vanessa Joseph (hurdles/relays) and Juliette Smith (hurdles, long jump) are also slated to make their debuts for Louisiana.
"We're still young on the women's side. We had a really thin team last year and we've added a lot of depth to it, but we're still going to be really young. It will be good to see some of the young kids when they step up a level in competition, can they step up and make that next step forward."
LOUISIANA AC
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Re: Louisiana Headed to Purple Tiger Invitational
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