SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships will take place at VMI’s Corps Physical Training Facility in Lexington, Virginia, this weekend. This year marks the 85th edition of the men’s championship and 33rd women’s championship.
 
Saturday’s schedule will begin at 9 a.m. with the men’s heptathlon, while the women’s pentathlon gets under way at 9:15 a.m. Saturday’s final event, the women’s distance medley relay, begins at 6:35 p.m. to cap the first day of competition. Sunday’s schedule gets going at 9 a.m. with the continuation of the heptathlon. The final event of the day, the men’s 4x400-meter relay, is slated for 4 p.m., followed by the awards ceremony.
 
Western Carolina will be seeking its seventh consecutive men’s title, while Samford will try for its fifth straight women’s title.
 
Last season, WCU’s men posted 165.5 points on the weekend, while Samford finished runner-up for the fifth straight year with 138.5 points. Furman totaled 90 points to finish third, its highest finish since a third-place showing in 1983.
 
Samford’s women totaled 172 points, with the Catamounts turning in 140 to finish as the runners-up for the fourth straight season. ETSU was third with 104 points.
 
This season’s power rankings – determined by the top eight times or scores that are reported by the schools for each event that will be conducted at this weekend’s championships – predict successful title defenses for both Western Carolina and Samford.
 
The Catamount men own 194.8 points in the power rankings, comfortably ahead of Samford’s 142.8 and Furman’s 106.
 
On the women’s side, Samford enjoys a comfortable lead with 157.5 points, followed by ETSU with 129 and Wofford with 121.
 
This year’s championship is free to the public. Live results, daily recaps, photos and video highlights can be found at SoConSports.com.
 
Storylines:
- Lexington, Virginia, is the site of the men’s event for the 38^th time, more than double the total of the next-highest sites, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Johnson City, Tennessee, which has each hosted 18 times. The men’s championship was contested in Lexington for 28 consecutive years from 1954-81. The women’s championship was held in Lexington for the sixth time last season. Prior to 2018, the last time VMI hosted the championships was in 2000.
 
- The winners of seven of the 15 individual events from last year’s meet return on both the men’s and women’s sides.
 
- Samford has won the men’s pole vault five straight times. After Tray Oates won four consecutively from 2015-18, Hugh Duggan won his first title last season and returns to the field this year.
 
- Of all of last year’s superlative winners, only Furman’s Ryan Adams, the male Most Outstanding Track Performer, and ETSU’s Mekayla Brown, the female Freshman of the Year, are back in action this year.
 
- Adams, who has won the award in two of the last three seasons, is the defending champion in the 800-meter run, an event he also won in 2017. He has not competed in the 800 this season, however, but tops the SoCon performance list in the mile (3:57.62) and the 3,000-meter run (7:49.45).
 
- Brown is in the top four of the SoCon performance list in three events this season, sitting third in the 60-meter dash (7.59 second) and long jump (5.89 meters) and fourth in the triple jump (11.91 meters).
 
- Samford’s women will attempt their title defense without the services of Selena Popp, the two-time Most Outstanding Athlete and three-time Most Outstanding Field Performer, and Karisa Nelson, the 2017 national champion in the mile and 2019 co-Most Outstanding Track Performer, who both exhausted their eligibility.
 
- Five meet records fell on the women’s side last year. Nelson set marks in the 800-meter run (2:06.10) and mile run (4:38.23), while Furman’s Savannah Carnahan set records in the 3,000-meter run (9:11.04) and 5,000-meter run (16:22.61). The Paladins also set a record in the distance medley relay, and event they’ve won in three straight years, with a time of 11:39.35.
 
- Carnahan is the three-time defending champion in the 5,000-meter run and owns the best time in the league this season by more than 45 seconds.
 
- Western Carolina has won the men’s 4x400-meter relay eight straight times and in 12 of the last 13 years.
 
2020 SoCon men’s indoor track and field power rankings
Team                        Points
Western Carolina     194.8
Samford                    142.8
Furman                     106
VMI                             70
Wofford                     51.3
The Citadel               45
ETSU                          38
UNC Greensboro      8
 
2020 SoCon women’s indoor track and field power rankings
Team                        Points
Samford                    157.5
ETSU                          129
Wofford                     121
Western Carolina      97
Furman                       90
VMI                             40.5
Chattanooga             13
The Citadel                5
UNC Greensboro      1