FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas' No. 2 women's team, the Southeastern Conference champion, and the No. 4 men, runners-up in the SEC, will seek national championships today and Saturday at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.
Both Razorbacks teams placed fifth in last year's NCAA Indoor team standings.
Though winning the SEC Indoor while ranked No. 1 nationally two weeks ago, coach Lance Harter's Razorbacks women are now ranked No. 2 to the Georgia team they handily outpointed two weekends ago at the SEC Indoor in College Station.
Harter explained apples and oranges differences of winning a conference meet, requiring team depth, and the NCAA Championships, requiring top-eight finish points among the 16 elite qualifiers for each event.
The difference especially manifests this year in men's track. Alabama, edging Chris Bucknam's Razorbacks by three points for the SEC ,en's title, only ranks eighth nationally behind fellow SEC members Georgia, Florida and Arkansas, ranked 2-4, and sixth-place Texas A&M.
"We did have a really good SEC meet to the say the least," Harter said. " But the Georgia crew had a great meet for the individuals they do have. We just have more depth and had more scoring opportunities and took advantage of those. But the superstars they are going to rise to the top. They have a few more stars than some of us do."
SEC members Kentucky, LSU and Florida rank right behind Arkansas' women at third, fourth and sixth with Southern California fifth.
Harter's qualifiers in College Station include his two SEC champions, Taliyah Brooks in the pentathlon and Nikki Hiltz in the mile.
Brooks also will compete in the open long jump.
Other SEC scorers with national aspirations in College Station are Jada Baylark, 60-meter dash; freshman Janeek Brown, 60-meter hurdles; Morgan Burks-Magee, 400-meter dash; versatile junior Payton Chadwick, 60 meter hurdles, 200-meter dash and long jump; and last, but definitely not least, All-American pole vaulting twin sisters of Cabot, Lexi Jacobus and Tori Hoggard, as well as Desiree Freier.
"What we can do is take care of business in the events that we are favored in," Harter said. "And those events that we are in to score more points if we can capitalize with that and somebody else has a flaw here or there."
Harter deemed Brooks a co-favorite in the pentathlon and said, "Nikki Hiltz is a young lady that if you let her hang around long enough she can find a way to beat you."
Jacobus, Hoggard and Freier are primed to vault for big points. Surpassing Kentucky's Olivia Gruver, the 2017 NCAA Outdoor champ and 2018 SEC Indoor champ, is a tall order.
"She's on a roll," Harter said.
All-American Chadwick is a threat in anything she undertakes, but it was Brown with a school record 8.01 for second in the 60-meter hurdles who stunned the SEC meet.
"She kind of announced herself," Harter said. "She grabbed our school record which is very competitive and put herself in the national scoring scene. She's matured quickly and the same with Morgan."
Bucknam said the team could still pursue a national title, even without All-American distance runner and former SEC cross country champion Alex George for the season with a stress fracture and NCAA Indoor qualified high jumper-triple jumper Jah-Nhai Perinchief, who pulled hamstring during the SEC meet.
"Of the nine athletes we have competing, we need all of them to score and we need some high places," Bucknam said. "You can't score nine guys seventh and eighth. You've got to get some high places, people right up there in the top three."
Two points from seventh place or a point from eighth place could perhaps prove pivotal with no dominant team. Texas Tech ranks No. 1 but the Red Raiders don't have the tradition of the customarily elite.
"In the past ,the final winning team score has been right top into the 60s at times" Bucknam said. "This year it looks so balanced that the low 40s could win the meet."
Bucknam's men are led by senior SEC 60-meter dash champion/SEC 200-meter dash runner-up Kenzo Cotton, as well as Jack Bruce and anchor miler Cameron Griffith off their SEC champion distance medley relay team.
Griffith will run the 3,000 and Bruce the 5,000 in College Station.
SEC heptathlon runner-up Gabe Moore contends, as does Obi Igbokwe and Rhayko Schwartz, in the open 400 and as part of Arkansas' 4 x 400 relay and Laquan Nairn, long jump.
Sports on 03/09/2018