FAYETTEVILLE -- Coming off SEC championship cross country seasons last fall, the Arkansas Razorbacks' men's and women's teams commence the indoor and track and field season Friday at the Randal Tyson Indoor Track facility.
For the 4 p.m. meet, Coach Lance Harter's reigning NCAA and SEC Indoor champion women's team host Texas Tech, Tulsa, Oral Roberts and Missouri State while Chris Bucknam's men's team, the 2015 SEC Indoor runner-ups and third at last year's NCAA Indoor, host Texas Tech, Tulsa, Oral Roberts and Dallas Baptist.
Harter loses his two 2015 individual NCAA Indoor champions, Dominique Scott, 3,000 meters and Sandi Morris, who has graduated and turned professional. Scott will compete for the Razorbacks this spring for the outdoor season.
Yet Harter's Razorbacks rank first in the first United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association national Indoor poll.
"I think that's a credit to the kids that we have returning that they think that fondly of us," Harter said. "And that was based only on returnees, not newcomers. We have some newcomers that can impact. The returnees being so well thought of, and knowing that we have a great recruiting class, we can be very formidable."
Just out of Cabot, Harter's Razorbacks feature the best of old and new. Senior All-American vaulter Ariel Voskamp of Cabot is joined out of the Lonoke County city by freshman twins Tori Weeks, last season's nationally top Indoor high school vaulter, and Lexi Weeks, last season's nationally top Outdoor high school vaulter.
Taylor Ellis-Watson, second in last year's NCAA Indoor 400 and anchoring Arkansas' runner-up NCAA Indoor 4 x 400 last year, returns to lead the sprints.
Harter's Razorbacks are favored to win the SEC Indoor meet that Arkansas hosts Feb. 26 and 27, but SEC members Georgia, Florida and Kentucky nationally rank second, sixth and eighth.
Bucknam's SEC champion cross country team defied projections.
"At nationals we finished sixth and in one poll we ranked 27th preseason," Bucknam said. "And in the SEC we were projected behind Ole Miss (but routed the Rebels). So I think there is momentum."
No. 1 Florida, which was last year's runner-up at the SEC indoor meet, presents Arkansas' toughest challenge, so Bucknam knows odds don't favor the Razorbacks winning the meet again this year.
"Nationally we are ranked 10th with four SEC teams ranked ahead of us," Bucknam said. "But we are going into the season like we can contend for an SEC championship."
A different Arkansas leader every cross country race underscores Arkansas' distance versatility indoors.
Though NCAA Indoor record-setting hurdler Omar McLeod has turned pro, the Hogs still have a star capable of shining like no other. Jarrion Lawson, a senior 2-time NCAA champion already working on his MBA, Bucknam said, is world class in the long jump and sprints and among 10 on the Bill Bowerman Trophy watch list for the award annually presented in the summer to the best performer in collegiate track and field.
Lawson opens Friday in the 60-meter dash and on the 4 x 400 relay.
Sports on 01/13/2016