Aggie fans will have their last chance to glimpse the track teams in person this weekend.
Texas A&M will host the Aggie Invitational Meet this Friday and Saturday at Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium. The Aggies come off last weekend’s Arkansas Invitational in Fayetteville, where the men missed a first-place berth by one and a half points to take third, and the women finished fourth.
“It’s good for our team to understand that it takes everyone to win,” said head track coach Pat Henry. “The SEC championships are coming up and that’s an opportunity to make sure that everyone can be on the same page on the same day. That’s what each of these competitions is about, trying to find out where our strengths and weaknesses are and deal with them prior to the SEC Championships.”
Despite a missed first-place shot, the men’s 4×400 relay team ran a near-historic race. The Aggie quartet of Gary Coleman, Bralon Taplin, Shavez Hart and Deon Lendore came within three hundredths of a second of breaking their own national record with a time of 3:03.23. For its efforts, the relay team was granted a share of this week’s SEC Sprinter of Week award, the third consecutive week that a Texas A&M team member has held that distinction.
This weekend’s meet features Baylor (men No. 15), Clemson (women No. 24), Houston (men No. 21), Rice, TCU (men No. 23), Texas State and UTEP — a lineup that will pose a challenge to the Aggies even it isn’t quite as stout as the five top-10 schools A&M faced last weekend.
“It’s a good balance of teams, [both] the men and women’s side,” Henry said. “This will be a competitive meet in almost every event and that’s what we need for this time of year.”
The Aggie Invitational Meet is the last opportunity to catch a meet in College Station. Despite eight national championship titles, the track team lacks the amenities to host an outdoor meet and must spend the entire outdoor season away from home.
“This is the last home meet for 28 seniors,” Henry said. “This weekend is the last time that they’ll get to compete at home because we don’t have a track facility that our athletes can compete on outdoors. Indoors is fun, it’s good to do, but track is really an outdoor sport. The fact that we don’t have an outdoor track is just incredible.”
The Aggies’ last home stand will kick off at 2:30 p.m. Friday in Gilliam with the pentathlon, heptathlon and distance medley relay. The majority of the competition will take place Saturday, with field events and prelims starting at 12:30 p.m. The meet is available on SEC Network+ and the Watch ESPN app.