AUBURN, Ala. - Auburn track & field looks to continue its strong start to the indoor season as the Tigers head to Fayetteville, Arkansas. for the Razorback Invitational Jan. 26-27. The meet will be held at the Randal Tyson Track Center with the men's heptathlon starting Friday at 11:35 a.m. CT and Saturday at 10 a.m. CT.
It's going to be a weekend full of still competition as the men go toe-to-toe with nine nationally ranked teams and nine SEC opponents including the reigning indoor champion, Arkansas. The Auburn women will also have to face the reigning indoor women's SEC champions as well as 11 nationally-ranked programs.
"We would like to see some things develop more on the track," Auburn track & field head coach Leroy Burrell said. "On the men's side, we will give Favour Ashe an opportunity to confirm his performance from the dual meet a couple of weeks ago. I want to see how he performs with more competition."
The team opened the season in Birmingham at the inaugural Harvey Glance Tide & Tiger Dual Meet where Ashe logged the No. 1 time, nationally, in the 60m at 6.53. Ashe was awarded the SEC Men's Co-Runner of the Week following the performance.
Burrell and the Tigers plan to use this week's meet to evaluate the strength of the men's sprints squad as a whole.
"I believe the men are going to do quite well," Burrell said. "We'll be able to get a true picture of where our men's sprints are in Arkansas."
On the women's side, it has been the jumps core putting up the big numbers. At the Vanderbilt Invitational, junior Simone Johnson took home gold in the triple jump, and posted the fifth-best mark in the nation, top mark in the SEC and became the No. 5 performer in Auburn history (13.36m). Graduate student Sanaa Barnes finished first at Vanderbilt with a jump of 1.85m that was strong enough to make the top 10 national list in the event.
"On the women's side, we feel really good about our jumps," Burrell said. "Our jumps group is really special, but we also think we've got a good group of 400m runners so we're going to put a 4x4m out there this weekend."
Live results from the meet can be found on flashresults.com.