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SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships will take place at Western Carolina’s Catamount Athletic Complex in Cullowhee, North Carolina, this Saturday and Sunday. This year marks the 96th championship for the men and 34th for the women. The 2020 championships were not contested due to the coronavirus pandemic.
 
Saturday’s schedule gets under way with the women’s 10,000-meter run at 8:30 a.m., followed by the men’s 10,000m. The decathlon and field events begin at 10, with the heptathlon starting at 10:15. A full day of events concludes with the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase and men’s pole vault at 5:55 p.m. In all, 12 champions will be crowned on the first day of competition, four on the track and eight in field events.
 
Sunday’s schedule opens with the first of the final five decathlon events at 9 a.m., with the heptathlon resuming at 9:15. Field events begin with the women’s discus and men’s shot put finals at 11:15 a.m. and the women’s 4x100-meter relay gets the track events started at 1 p.m. The day concludes with the women’s and men’s 4x400-meter relays at 4:25 and 4:40, respectively, followed by the awards ceremony. Thirty events will crown champions on the final day of the meet.
 
Western Carolina is the four-time defending champion on the men’s side, as the Catamounts overtook runner-up Samford for the team lead midway through the second day of competition in 2019 for their ninth team title. Samford’s women won their third title overall and second in three seasons in 2019. The Bulldogs built a big lead on day one and never trailed on day two in running away with the team title.
 
Samford, which swept the men’s and women’s titles at the 2021 SoCon Indoor Track and Field Championships in February, holds healthy leads in this season’s outdoor 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 week’s championships.
 
The Bulldog men have totaled 226.4 points in the power rankings, scoring in 18 of 21 events to easily outdistance second-place Western Carolina (117.2 points). Samford collected at least 20 points in five events, including 30 in the 110-meter hurdles, in which Samford has posted five of the top six times in the league this season. The Catamounts scored 83.2 of their points in field events. Furman is third in the power rankings with 115 points, the majority of which came from three events. The Paladins scored 31 points each in the 5,000-meter run and 10,000-meter run and 33 in the 1,500-meter run.
 
Samford’s women have totaled 219.83 points in the power rankings, scoring in 19 of 21 events, highlighted by 37 points in the pole vault. The Bulldogs dominate the SoCon performance list in the event, claiming seven of the top eight marks on the season. Wofford is second in the power rankings with 130.5 points on the strength of 23 points in the long jump, in which the Terriers have posted five of the top eight marks in the league this season. Western Carolina is third with 97.67 points, highlighted by 21 in the triple jump, an event in which the Catamounts have posted four of the top eight marks in the league this season.
 
As announced earlier this week, spectators will not be permitted inside the stadium but can view the event from outside the stadium if desired.
 
The championships will air live on ESPN+ both days, with Saturday’s coverage starting at 2 p.m. Eastern and Sunday’s at 1 p.m. Live results, daily recaps, photos and video highlights can be found at SoConSports.com.
 
Storylines:
- The event returns to Cullowhee for the sixth time. Previous championships hosted by Western Carolina occurred in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2018.
 
- Only one of the individual superlative winners on the men’s side from 2019 returns this season in Wofford’s Elijah Bull, who was the SoCon Freshman of the Year. On the women’s side, Samford’s Maggie Johnston, who was the 2019 Most Outstanding Athlete and Most Outstanding Field Performer, returns, as does ETSU’s Mekayla Brown, who was the 2019 SoCon Freshman of the Year.
 
- Five of the 19 men’s individual event winners from 2019 are back in the field this season, including Furman’s Ryan Adams, the reigning champion in both the 1,500-meter run and the 800-meter run. ETSU’s Karon Delince is the reigning champion in the long jump and Samford’s Emmanuel Tait and Michael McMahan are the defending champions in the 110-meter hurdles and 400-meter hurdles, respectively.
 
- Nine of the 19 individual event winners from 2019 are back in the field on the women’s side, including double winners Maggie Johnston of Samford, who is the defending champion in both the discus and shot put, and Western Carolina’s Makaila McIntyre, the defending champion in both the long jump and triple jump. Johnston is seeking her fourth career SoCon title in the discus. Also back in 2021 are reigning pole vault champion Tally Wilson, high jump champion Charlotte Krause and javelin champion Emorie Long, all of Samford, Western Carolina’s Kellsie Whitehead, who won the 400-meter dash in 2019, and Furman’s Gabbi Jennings, the 2019 winner of the 5,000-meter run, though she has not competed in the event this spring.
 
- Four meet records fell in 2019, with ETSU’s Ben Johnson (discus, 54.53 meters), Samford’s Karisa Nelson (1,500-meter run, 4:18.52), Wofford’s Hannah Steelman (3,000-meter steeplechase, 10:00.79) and Samford’s Maggie Johnston (discus, 51.40 meters) all setting new marks.
 
- Two SoCon individuals enter the meet inside the top 10 in the NCAA Division I Outdoor Qualifying List so far this season. Furman’s Gabbi Jennings appears in the top 10 in two events, ranking second in the 3,000m steeplechase and fifth in the 1,500m. Her 9:43.48 time in the steeplechase is good for a school record and an Olympic Trials qualifying mark and is more than 17 seconds faster than Steelman’s SoCon Championship record from 2019. Jennings’s time of 4:12.60 in the 1,500m is also a school record and was the top time in the NCAA when she ran it at the Joe Walker Invitational on April 9. That time is nearly six seconds under the SoCon Championship record set by Nelson in 2019. The Paladins’ Ryan Adams ranks seventh on the NCAA’s men’s 1,500m list with a school-record mark of 3:37.82, which is well under the SoCon Championship record of 3:40.04 that has stood since 1977.
 
 
2021 SoCon men’s outdoor track and field power rankings
Team                        Points
Samford                    226.4
Western Carolina       117.2
Furman                     115
VMI                           102
Wofford                     99.5
The Citadel                80.9
ETSU                        55
UNCG                       10
 
2021 SoCon women’s outdoor track and field power rankings
Team                        Points
Samford                    219.83
Wofford                     130.5
Western Carolina       97.67
Furman                     90
ETSU                        89
Mercer                      80
VMI                           43
The Citadel                42
Chattanooga              8
UNCG                       0