Bearkats begin indoor campaign Friday
1/12/2017 2:20:00 PM | Track & Field, Women's Track & Field
Meet No. 1
Friday, Jan. 13 • College Station, Texas • All Day • Gilliam Indoor Stadium
Texas A&M Team Invitational • Meet Info • Live Results • @BearkatsTFXC on Twitter
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Sam Houston State track and field opens its six-meet regular season schedule on Friday at the Texas A&M Team Invitational, looking to knock off the rust and jump start another championship indoor season.
The Bearkats will be joined by opponents from Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Prairie View A&M, UTRGV, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas Southern Southern, Louisiana and ULM.
Both running events and field events begin at noon from the Gilliam Indoor Stadium and carry on throughout the day.
Sam Houston will welcome several new faces while also returning the likes of Garrett Larson (pole vault), Kalvin Singletary (throws), Briana McCall (400 meters, 800 meters, 4x400 relay, DMR) and Jordan Grady (400 meters, 200 meters, 4x400 relay).
The Sam Houston women captured two of the last three Southland Conference Indoor Championships including a program-record 162 points at the event a season ago in Birmingham, Ala. The men are also returning Southland indoor champs, doing so to the tune of 121 points in 2016.
Among this year's indoor schedule will feature the first 2017 Indoor Track & Field Classic, held at the newly-built Ford Center at the Star – the world headquarters and practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys. The event, which takes place Feb. 9-11, will feature 25 collegiate teams.
For the fourth straight season, the Southland Conference Indoor Championships will be held in the Birmingham Crossplex in Birmingham, Ala. This year, the event will take place Feb. 22-23.
The Kats will seek another strong performance in hopes of garnering entrees into the NCAA Indoor Championships, which will take place where the season begins, in College Station.
Head coach David Self's thoughts entering the season…
“Coming off the successes of last year, we have really been excited knocking we had a lot of the biggest pieces of the puzzle returning off those teams. Obviously, we lost some big pieces with Danielle (Demas), Ashley (Jenkins) and Justin (Jenkins) but for the most part, we have a really good group returning. We had a fantastic recruiting class and it has been one of the best falls we have had.”
Head coach David Self on expectation for the first meet…
“We have a few folks that are injured right now that are pretty heavy hitters but it is nothing major. We will play it safe with them. I'd say we're 80 percent right now. We want to go out and compete. There will be a lot of freshmen who will be taking part in their first college meet and for several of them, their first indoor meet. Let's get a competition under our best, we'll have a couple weeks to train and really after Houston, the meat and bread of the season gets going.”
Head coach David Self on the addition of the Frisco meet to the 2017 schedule…
“With the limited number of indoor venues in this part of the country, having a new venue to go to is always nice. It's in the new Cowboys world headquarters. To have a new arena and be able to get two good quality meets over two days, it's something we're looking forward to.”
Head coach David Self on enhanced expectations for programs…
“The things we are wanting our student-athletes, team and goals have all been raised. There are a lot of things we want to do at the conference level – like win the conference meet every year. We've also done some things where we've set some goals on the national stage. We want to become the best mid-major program in the United States. There are schools we look at that we want to compare ourselves to.”
