MSU Begins SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships Thursday
Meet Notes | Live Results | Thursday Live Video | Friday Live Video | Saturday Live Video
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Mississippi State’s track and field program enters the 2019 SEC Championships chasing the opportunity for one of its best performances in recent memory.
The Bulldogs boast three individual men’s event leaders and four women among the top five in the conference in their events. This year’s championships will be held May 9-11 in Fayetteville, Arkansas with a live stream available on SEC Network+ for Thursday and Friday. Saturday’s finals will air live on SEC Network.
“Our biggest thing that we’ve been preaching the last several weeks has been executing our events,” interim head coach Chris Woods said. “When you get here, you don’t have to do anything more or less special than you’ve been doing all year. You really just dance with the girl who got you there, and you should do pretty well.”
MSU’s men, led by Anderson Peters (javelin), Marco Arop (800m) and Stephen Jones (3000m steeplechase), are chasing two potential milestones. The last time a pair of Bulldog men won individual conference crowns in the same season came in 2005 when Steve Mullings (100m) and LaChristopher Lewis (long jump) did so in Nashville, Tennessee.
Peters, the national leader in the javelin, has a chance to repeat as SEC Champion. The last Bulldog to successfully defend an outdoor conference title was Erica Bougard in the heptathlon in 2016. The last MSU man to do so was Garry Frank, who defended his shot put crown in 1987.
On the women’s side, Logan Boss returns to conference competition for the first time since she won the indoor high jump title in 2018. Boss is one of two active SEC women to have cleared 1.92m in their careers – indoors or outdoors.
Also among the women’s SEC leaders are Alon Lewis (800m), Tiffany Flynn (triple jump) and Sarah Blake (javelin). Flynn and Blake have already broken the school record in their events this year.
The SEC Championships are scored using a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 format. MSU’s women have finished as high as eighth four times, most recently in 2015. State’s men boast one conference title in 1962 and a runner-up finish the following year.
The last time, MSU landed in the top five came in 2012 when the men finished fifth with 61 points. The men have scored as many as 69 points (2003) and the women have totaled as many as 51 (2015).
The Bulldogs return eight individuals who scored points last year, including Arop, Peters and Lewis. Charles Brockman III, Rasheed Tatham and Malcum Tatum all return in the 400m hurdles where they combined for 11 points last year. Shannon Fair scored in the 10,000m last season, and Zaria Tillman picked up three points in the heptathlon.
