LSU goes into league meet on long layoff

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 16, 2008 - Page: 2C - UPDATED: 12:15 a.m.

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It’s been 20 days since the LSU track and field teams lined up in a competitive environment at the Penn Relays on April 26, leaving coach Dennis Shaver to wonder what he’s going to get this weekend.

For starters, it’s not comforting knowing the second-ranked Lady Tigers and fourth-ranked Tigers can’t afford to get back into it slowly in the Southeastern Conference Championships in Auburn, Ala.

Then again, is there ever a good time to take on what has proven year after year to be the toughest competition in the country? As any coach will readily tell you, the SEC meet is usually — if not always — as tough as anything the athletes will see at the NCAA Championships next month.

Going into the four-day meet, which began Thursday with the opening events in the decathlon and heptathlon, eight men’s teams and six women’s teams are ranked in the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association polls.

Regardless of how stiff the competition is, getting back on the track is the biggest thing for Shaver and his teams. The 20-day break, which included a week for final exams, was the longest for LSU since at least 1990. In 1998, ’99 and 2004, the teams had 19-day layoffs.

“I think it’s good to have final exams out of the way,” Shaver said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to regain some focus because it was hard to get much done last week. But we had a couple of good practices this week, so we should be ready to go.”

Shaver said he wanted to have at least one meet since the Penn Relays, where the Tigers and Lady Tigers turned in some outstanding efforts in the relays, but exams didn’t allow it.

“The long layoff takes the edge off, so it’ll be interesting to see how quickly we get it back,” he said. “There’s a real big difference between practice and competition. We might be a little rusty Friday and Saturday, but that’s only natural. If they get to the finals on Sunday, they’ll feel a lot better.

“Time will only tell. We’ve got them as prepared as we could with the long break we had.”

The LSU women will likely be favored to win to defend the title they won last season. The men’s team, on the other hand, will be eyeing a top-three finish after taking second last year. The Lady Tigers have plenty of quality and quantity, which is important at this meet.

They lead the conference in five individual events, while the top-ranked 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams sit top the conference as well as the nation.

Senior Kelly Baptiste leads the way in the 100 and 200 with times of 11.06 and 22.96 seconds, respectively, and she also anchors the 400 relay team that has posted a time of 42.59 seconds. She is joined on the relay by Brooklynn Morris, Juanita Broaddus and Samantha Henry.

Henry ranks second in the 100 and third in the 200, while Morris ranks fourth in the 200.