AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn track & field looks to culminate its indoor season with some hardware at SEC Championships Friday and Saturday at Texas A&M's Gilliam Indoor Stadium in Bryan-College Station, Texas.
The Tigers will send 19 men and 17 women to compete in this year's championships, including 14 whom will be competing at the event for the first time in their careers.
A total of 11 Tigers have previously scored at SEC Indoors.
"We're heading into the weekend ready to give our best performances of the year," Tigers head coach Ralph Spry said. "If we can succeed amongst the best in this conference, we can succeed amongst the best in the nation, and our team knows that.
"We've got a good mix of experienced athletes and newer athletes who are competing really well at the moment," Spry said. "If we can combine strengths from both of those groups, it'll be a really dangerous mix."
At last year's SEC Indoor championships, the Tigers banked seven podium-worthy performances, three of which went for gold – the 119th, 120th and 121st, in program history.
Leading the returning scorers is senior distance runner and two-time SEC Champion, Joyce Kimeli. Kimeli has 48 career points to her credit. Last year, she became Auburn's first female SEC Indoor Champion since Kai Selvon in 2012, and the first Tiger to ever sweep the distance events, winning gold in both the 3000m and 5000m.
Senior throws All-American Madi Malone follows Kimeli with 19 career points scored at SECs. Malone has won both silver and bronze during her tenure at Auburn and has never finished lower than fourth in the women's weight throw.
Malone enters the weekend third in the nation with her top mark of 23.32m/76-6, the new Auburn record set three weeks ago at the USA Invitational. Only Shey Taiwo and Jasmine Mitchell of Ole Miss have thrown farther than Malone this season.
Last year's 60m dash champion, Dante Brown, will also be returning to defend his title this year. In 2021, Brown posted a time of 6.67 seconds to secure the men's program's 88th gold medal at SEC Indoors. The Jackson, Mississippi native's best outing of the season came at the Texas Tech Open, winning second in the 60m with a 6.66 second performance. Brown will compete in the 200m in addition to the 60m this weekend.
Auburn also boasts a pair of jumpers who both earned silver at last year's championships, senior high jumper Dontavious Hill and senior pole vaulter James Courson. The pair enters the meet ranked second and fifth in the conference in their respective events.
Looking to get over the hump and secure the first SEC medals of their career are junior Kyle Brown and senior Presley Weems. Brown cemented his spot at the third-best thrower in program history, and the best since 2007, with a career-best 21.69m/71-2 outing at the Texas Tech Open while Weems has smashed school records in two of her three indoor outings of the season. Weems first broke teammate Kimeli's mile record from the previous year at the Meyo Invitational before breaking the 19-year-old 800m record just a week later at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational.
Brown ranks second in the conference in weight throw while Weems ranks in the SEC's top-five for both the 800m and the mile.
Fans can catch the Tigers in action at SEC Indoors via the SEC Network+. Friday's events will be streamed from 11:30 a.m. to 3:55 p.m. CT and again from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. CT.
On Saturday, the broadcast will begin at 1 p.m. and conclude at 8 p.m. CT. Live results will also be available at FlashResults.com.
