The Lipscomb track and field team has anticipated hosting Belmont in a home meet for some time, and now it finally gets to do this Friday as the outdoor season kicks off.
The track and field Battle of the Boulevard is historic for the Bisons because it is the first home meet the team has ever hosted.
“I think it’s a good idea that we have a home meet, and I’m kind of excited, being a senior, that it is the first home meet that we have ever hosted,” senior sprinter Kenny Smith said.
Even though running at home is exciting for the team, they said there are still a few factors they feel uneasy about. Smith said that the team’s motivation could be higher.
“It’s hard [to get motivated] because some people aren’t taking it as seriously as it should be taken, like a normal, big track meet,” Smith said. “We’re not really looking at this meet as a meet, we’re looking more to it as practice, which is never good going into a meet — thinking of it as practice when you should be thinking of it as a meet — as competition.”
Regardless of the team’s degree of motivation toward the meet, the team is excited since it is the first outdoor meet of the season. At the end of the indoor season, the Bisons showed some success.
Sophomore Wayne Newman set the Lipscomb and Atlantic Sun record for the 60m hurdles with a time of 7.95 seconds, and Madi Talbert, Sally Larson, Barbara Lee Ball and Paige Stoner dominated the 5000m.
“I think we ended on a really good high note,” Newman said. “I think if we just keep up the motivation, and just keep the team moving in the right direction, and keep working, we’ll end on another high note at the end of outdoor.”
Newman said that fans would notice differences between the indoor and outdoor meets.
“The events changed from indoor to outdoor, so you have people running different events that they didn’t necessarily run in indoor,” Newman said. “So it’s kind of a nice meet to see where people will stack up in other events that they may not have run before.”
The Bisons hope to carry the indoor season success to the outdoor season that begins at home on Friday, March 13.
Smith and Newman stressed that they want as many fans to come to the meet as possible.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics