THE WARM-UP LAP: National Meet of the Week Preview – Arkansas Razorback Invitational

The collegiate track & field season keeps rolling this weekend, with its epicenter staying in SEC country for the second weekend in a row but moving from Kentucky to Arkansas for the  Razorback Invitational – this week’s USTFCCCA National Meet of the Week.

MORE INFO: SEC Network+ LIVE STREAM | Live Results | Meet Schedule | Heat Sheets

Sprints will take center stage in Fayetteville this weekend – the site of next month’s NCAA Championships – as well as a few top-flight matchups in the distance and jumps events.

To see what else is going on around the country, including some premier athletes at the Armory Collegiate Invitational, check out the second half of our weekend preview here.

Note that we reference the USTFCCCA lists throughout this article when talking about individual rankings. Those lists, which can be found here, include returners’ top times from 2014 and the top marks from the young 2015 season.

Loaded Men’s 400 Field at Arkansas

Men’s 400 Finals | Saturday, 1:10pm CT

Last week’s Rod McCravy Memorial at Kentucky featured so many top-flight events that we needed two separate 1000+ word articles to cover it. One event that flew under the radar at Kentucky was the men’s 400. That will not be the case this weekend in Arkansas.

Unfortunately we won’t see the debut of reigning The Bowerman Trophy winner Deon Lendore of Texas A&M or his collegiate-leading teammate Bralon Taplin, but this field is still stacked. Check it out below:

Yes, you read that list right. Five of the top 10 400-meter sprinters in the country will be in action.

Headlining this field is LSU’s Vernon Norwood. Lendore edged out Norwood by a quarter of a second indoors at NCAAs last year, but the two raced in separate sections. Norwood was third to Lendore outdoors.

Also returning from that 2014 indoor final is Notre Dame’s Christopher Giesting, who was runner-up in Norwood’s section.

Neither of those two men have run an open 400 yet this season. Norwood went 1:08.84 over 600 yards and Giesting went 1:16.70 over 600 meters this past weekend.

Norwood, however, nearly brought his 4×400 relay to the win at Kentucky with an announced split in the 45-second neighborhood, just slightly faster than the Florida trio of Najee Glass‘ 45.xx split, Hugh Graham Jr.’s 46.xx split and Nick Uruburu’s 46-second split. All four are entered in this event.

Also, for the sake of cross-event intrigue, collegiate 800 No. 1 Edward Kemboi is also in the field.

We could also see many of these guys back in an exceptional 4×400 relay – plus the likes of Lendore and Taplin for Texas A&M’s quartet. Many of these guys from Texas A&M, Florida and LSU have combined to win all four of the last 4×400 national titles indoors and outdoors over the past two seasons.

Relay lists are not yet out, so we don’t know who will be running that relay. All three of those programs ran A teams a weekend ago.

Hot 60-meter Dash Action for Both Genders

Men’s 60 | Prelims, Friday 6pm CT; Semifinals, Saturday 2:05pm CT; Final, 3pm CT
Women’s 60 | Prelims, Friday 5:40pm CT; Semifinals, Saturday 2pm CT; Final, 2:55pm CT

Two weekends ago, John Teeters of Oklahoma State ran 6.54 for the collegiate lead at Nebraska, only to be tied this past weekend by Trayvon Bromell of Baylor. Teeters gets his chance to respond this weekend in a field that features No. 9 Devin Jenkins of Texas A&M, No. 11 Antwan Wright of Florida and No. 14 Raheem Mostert of Purdue. Here’s the list of top challengers:

The women’s race is similarly deep, headlined by Florida’s No. 5 Shayla Sanders, who finished sixth at NCAAs a year. Challenging  her will be the deep Texas A&M sprints squad led by No. 8 Olivia Ekpone and Jennifer Madu, and the youthful LSU sprints group led by No. 13 frosh Mikiah Brisco.

Here’s the full breakdown of the field’s top challengers.

2014 NCAA Champions Dendy & Lawson Square Off in the Long Jump

Men’s Long Jump | Friday, 7pm CT

Florida’s Marquis Dendy‘s and Arkansas’ Jarrion Lawson‘s 2014 track seasons were the Yin to the other’s Yang. Lawson had a phenomenal indoor season that saw him jump 27-6½ (8.39m) and win the NCAA Championships, while Dendy (recovering from surgery in the fall) finished 16th at NCAAs. Outdoors was the opposite as Dendy took the long jump and triple jump NCAA titles while Lawson didn’t advance to NCAAs in the long jump.

Both are healthy now and both are squaring off this weekend. Neither has been phenomenal this season with Lawson at 7.56 and Dendy at 7.54, but with the two pushing each other expect some fireworks.

Top-10 Battle in the Women’s Triple Jump

Women’s Triple Jump | Saturday, 2pm CT

As good as that men’s long jump is, the women’s triple jump might be just as good. No. 2 Ciarra Brewer of Florida was outstanding last weekend at McCravy with a mark of 45-2¼ (13.77m),but fell just short to Georgia’s Keturah Orji. The collegiate-leading, American Junior Record-holding Bulldog won’t be in Fayetteville this weekend, but there won’t be any shortage of competition for Brewer.

She’s see No. 9 Tamara Myers of Arkansas and No. 14 Cierra Brown of Purdue.

How About Some Distance Action?

Women’s DMR | Friday, 8pm CT
Men’s DMR | Friday, 8:15pm CT
Men’s 3000 | Saturday, 12:20pm CT
Women’s 800
Invitational | 3:35pm CT

That’s right, it’s more than just sprints and jumps in Arkansas this weekend. In addition to the DMR (which we haven’t seen entry lists for just yet) there’s very intriguing races set up for both the men’s 3000 and the women’s 800.

For the men’s 3000, we’ve got four top-20 finishers from November’s NCAA Championships scheduled to compete. Arkansas’ Stanley Kebenei was sixth at NCAAs, and he’s up against 14th-place finisher Marc Scott of Tulsa, 19th-place finisher Matt McClintock of Purdue and 20th-place Sean McGorty of Stanford.

Notably, McGorty is currently the collegiate leader in the mile. Also in the field is sub-8:00 man Chad Noelle of Oklahoma State.

In that women’s 800 meters race you have three of the top nine runners on the USTFCCCA lists in 2014 indoor runner-up No. 4 Savannah Camacho of Oklahoma State, her national third-place teammate No. 8 Kaela Edwards and No. 9 Claudia Saunders of Stanford.

Also in the field are a pair of early-season frontrunners in No. 15 Morgan Schuetz of LSU and No. 28 Claudia Francis of Florida, who won at McCravy last weekend.

On the DMR front, Elise Cranny and Olivia Baker of Stanford have been assigned bib numbers but do not show individual events next to their names on the athletes list on the meet’s FlashResults page. Could they be in the distance medley relay? We’ll find out.

We could also see a great DMR showdown between Florida, Stanford, Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Notre Dame – all of whom are potential contenders at NCAAs later this winter.

Year of the Vault Record Watch

This may finally be the weekend Sandi Morris of Arkansas will be able to vault without having to worry after she’s done competing about Demi Payne potentially surpassing her mark elsewhere around the country. Payne will kick off her event at 3pm CT at Houston, while Morris’ event at Arkansas will start at 4pm CT. Could there be simultaneous 15-foot vaulting happening?

Morris has taken shots at the collegiate record in each of the past three weekends – briefly setting the collegiate record two weekends ago before Payne took the record the next day and ran away with it the next weekend.