Gamecocks Ready for SEC Indoor Championships
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (Feb. 22, 2024) – South Carolina Track & Field is putting together the final touches of preparation ahead of the fastest meet in the land, the 2024 SEC Indoor Championships. This year’s edition of the SEC Indoor Championships will be hosted at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.
Follow the Meet
Live results for the SEC Indoor Championships can be found by clicking the link here. Anyone interested in watching the event live can do so on SEC Network+ by clicking the link here. Fans can also follow along with updates on Twitter by following @GamecockTrack.
Ticket Information
Fans that are interesting in attending the event can do so for a nominal fee. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for youth, covering both days. Single day tickets are also available for purchase for $15 for adults and $10 for youth.
Meet Information
The best of the best teams are in Fayetteville to compete in the best conference meet in the country that will be a two-day meet starting on Friday. In fact, nine of the 14 women’s teams competing are found inside the USTFCCCA Top 25 rankings, including the Gamecocks who are ranked 15th overall. Arkansas, the host of the SEC Indoor Championships, have won nine consecutive indoor championships and enter the meet as the top-ranked team in the country. On the men’s side, seven of the 13 teams that will be competing are inside the Top 25, including South Carolina sliding in at 16th. The Razorback men have won four consecutive indoor conference championships and enter the weekend as the highest ranked men’s SEC squad at No. 3.
The SEC Championships will be the first scored meet of the indoor season for the Gamecocks. The top eight scorers in each event will result in points for their teams in the following format (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1). Competitors who finish top three in events earn the title of All-SEC.
The meet will start on Friday with the heptathlon events at noon and pentathlon events at 12:15 p.m. The first true field event will be at 1:30 with the women’s pole vault, while the first track event will be the women’s one-mile prelims at 4 p.m. Saturday’s events will start at noon with the heptathlon, followed by the first field event at 2:15 p.m. in the men’s high jump. The first track event on Saturday will be the women’s one-mile final at 4:05 p.m. with the meet concluding with the women’s 4×400 at 6:45 p.m. and the men’s 4×400 starting at 7 p.m. All times are listed in CENTRAL TIME. For a full rundown of the meet schedule, click the following link.
History in the SEC
The Gamecocks look to keep their season momentum rolling under first-year head coach Tim Hall. In Hall’s first season, the Gamecocks have achieved 45 new Top-10 indoor program marks, including 10 new program records. In just his first indoor season, Hall has aided in four new Carolina Indoor Track & Field Complex facility records. The Gamecocks look to improve on last season’s SEC Indoor Championship in which the Gamecocks finished 11th in both the men and the women’s standings. The men will be seeking their first Top-10 finish since 2019, while the women are in search of their first Top-10 finish since 2013. Anass Essayi returns as the only defending champion for the Gamecocks, having won back-to-back SEC Indoor titles in the men’s mile. Essayi looks to make history as the first ever three-peat champion in the men’s mile in SEC indoor history. With a win in the men’s mile, he would join Brad Snyder as the Gamecock’s only indoor SEC three-peat champion on either team. Snyder accomplished the feat when he won four consecutive shot put titles from 1996-99.
It all Comes Down to This
The SEC Indoor Championships are the final effort to claim a spot in the 2024 NCAA Indoor Championships in Boston, Mass. in two weeks. The NCAA Championship will be reserved for the top 16 spots in each individual event, while the top 12 relay teams will move on to Boston.
The Gamecocks currently have 10 spots qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championship. JaMeesia Ford and Anass Essayi are currently sitting inside the cut line in a pair of events – Ford ranking 1st in the 200m (22.36) and 3rd in the 400m (51.33), while Essayi ranks third in the mile (3:51.91) and eighth in the 3,000 meter (7:39.11). Two more Gamecocks rank eighth overall as Anthony Greenhow sits 8th in the 200m (20.60) and Dylan Targgart ranks 8th in the men’s shot put with a distance of 19.76m. A trio of Gamecocks rank just inside the cutline: Theo Mudzengerere is 12th in the triple jump (16.00m), Zaya Akins ranks 13th in the 400m (52.23) and Nyck Harbor sits 16th in the 60m (6.61). The final ranking for the Gamecocks is the women’s 4x400m relay squad that ranks second in the NCAA with a time of 3:27.09.
