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April 5, 2012

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AUBURN - Auburn track and field hosts its first outdoor home meet of the season this weekend with the Tiger Track Classic which begins on Friday afternoon and continues all day on Saturday at Hutsell-Rosen Track.

"Anytime you compete at home, it's always fun because you only have two meets a year at home," Auburn head coach Ralph Spry said. "It gives our Auburn people a chance to watch the kids they read about all the time running. It's nice to have a chance to be at home, sleep in your own bed, you're familiar with the facility, it's where you practice at. It just adds a sense of comfort and confidence to you, and then you have a lot of friends and family coming out, so it just makes for a neat environment. It also gives a lot of our kids who aren't initially on the travel squad a chance to compete."

Good weather is expected for the meet and it will be the first opportunity for many Auburn team members to compete after much of last weekend's action was canceled at the UNF Invitational.

"Unfortunately, we got rained out up in North Florida so a lot of kids didn't compete the first meet," Spry said. "A handful of them did. Again, it's early in the year. We're not overloading anything. We're just trying to get the ball rolling and get a couple of key people running qualified for the first round of NCAAs. The weather should be great. It should be a fun weekend. We have a lot of teams, probably 15 or 20 teams. Normally we have a couple of marquee teams here, but this year, there's no huge team here, which is kind of nice because it gives you a chance to kind of low-key it this weekend. Having numbers is good, but it won't be a bunch of big name teams, which gives a chance to kind of train through this weekend and kind of see where we are."

Fans looking for exciting action should look no further than the sprints on Saturday afternoon. Multiple former Olympians and collegiate champions will be competing as well as several former national qualifiers from the Auburn roster.

"The sprints for sure will be a lot of fun to watch. I definitely encourage the fans to come out and watch the men's 100 meters with three of our four guys running," Spry said. "The 4x100 relay will be good. Kai Selvon is running the 400 meters, she will be in the mix at nationals this year and is a former SEC champion. Also, we have a couple post-collegiate kids like Kerron Stewart, an Olympic medalist, she's going to run the 100 meters. Not only will you see a bunch of good talent, you'll see a bunch of world class athletes, and we have a lot of Olympic medalists and world champions out here."

Auburn sophomore Stephen Saenz is on track for another solid outdoor campaign. He current has the fourth-best throw in the nation after last weekend in Texas. Saenz will compete for Mexico this summer in London at the Olympic Games.

"We have a couple of good throwers competing this weekend. Stephen Saenz is an All-American and was SEC Freshman of the Year last year. He's going to throw the shot put and he's tough.  He'll be an Olympian for Mexico, so we're excited about that."

Auburn's second home meet, the War Eagle Invitational, is scheduled for April 20-12 at Hutsell-Rosen Track.

A schedule for all the action can be found at the link above. For the latest on Auburn track and field, follow at @AUTrack on Twitter.

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