FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.—The Auburn track and field team will compete in the 2021 Southeastern Conference Championships this Thursday through Saturday at the Randal Tyson Track Center on the campus of the University of Arkansas.
Typically a two-day event, this year's SEC championship will be held over three days. Action Thursday will begin at 10 a.m. CT with the men's and women's multi events. Friday and Saturday will consist of two sessions with the men competing in the morning and the women in the evening. Friday's sessions will start at 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. with Saturday's action starting at 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
The Auburn women enter the meet with four athletes ranked among the SEC's top eight, including junior distance runner Joyce Kimeli, who is fifth in the 5000m and eight in the 3000m. The Eldoret, Kenya native has been a runner up two consecutive years at SECs at the shorter distance and was second at 5000m as a freshman and fifth a year ago.
Junior Madi Malone is second in the conference and fourth nationally in the weight throw after breaking her own school record earlier this season with a mark of 22.56m/74-0.25. Malone was the silver medalist in the event two years ago and will be vying to be Auburn's first SEC champion ever in the event. Sophomore throwers Maura Huwalt and Jocelynn Budwig are second and seventh respectively in the league in the shot put.
"We're as ready as we're going to be," Auburn head coach Ralph Spry said. "We need our key people to do what they're capable of doing and hopefully we'll get some of young athletes to feed off that. We have several individuals that if they do what they've been doing all year long, we have a chance to have a solid performance by this group."
Auburn sprinters Dante Brown and Christopher Grant enter the weekend ranked third and eighth in the men's 60m dash. A NAIA indoor national champion in the event a year ago, Brown has Auburn's top time in the event at 6.66. Grant was the SEC bronze medalist a year ago and will attempt to be first Tiger sprinter since Raheem Chambers in 2017-18 to score in the event at SECs in back-to-back years.
Junior high jumper Dontavious Hill is third in the SEC and Auburn's top-ranked men's athlete nationally at eleventh. Hill has consecutive eighth place finishes at SECs in his first two seasons. Fellow junior James Courson is No. 4 in the league in the pole vault and is aiming to be Auburn's first conference scorer in the event since 2011. Sophomore thrower Kyle Brown was fifth in the weight throw at the 2020 conference meet and has a chance for repeat or better performance in his second season.
Auburn traveled 39 athletes for the meet with 17 who will be competing at the conference meet for the first time.
The meet will air live on SEC Network+ each day with a tape-delayed broadcast to be televised on the SEC Network, Sunday, February 28 at 7 p.m. CT. Live results for the 2021 SEC Indoor Championships can be found here.
Auburn track and field eyes SEC Indoors
