Nicholls track teams look to step up at McNeese Indoor Invite in Lake Charles

Heading into the second meet of the indoor track season, some Nicholls runners will get a chance to move up.

“I think we got a good training block after that first meet. A lot of the runners that ran the 600 (meters) at that first meet are going to move up to the 800,” said Nicholls track coach Stefanie Slekis. “A few of them that we think need a little bit more work will stay at 600 where we don’t think they’re quite fit enough to really go to 800 yet and they’re going to raise the 800 at the next meet. Definitely the runners that we want to move them up to maybe the mile at the next LSU meet, they are going to race 800 in the McNeese meet.”

In the opening event of the indoor season two weeks ago at the LSU Purple Tiger meet, Maria Nikolaou was the top Nicholls runner among the women in the 600 and Goran Duijsters was tops among the male competitors.

Nikolaou finished fifth among 20 participants in the women’s 600m with a time of 1:38.27, while Goran was the seventh in a field of 35 runners in the men’s 600, finishing with a time of 1:23.92.

“I’m excited to see what Maria and Goran – they led in the 600 for us – what they can do over 800. I think they’ve had some good workouts the past week.

“Amari Godette, he didn’t make the 60 final. He won’t race the 60 until we go back to LSU just because of the track surface at McNeese is better upstairs than it is downstairs, so we’re not running anyone downstairs in the McNeese meet besides our two pentathletes will run downstairs.”

The meet will take place in Lake Charles on Friday at a McNeese facility which is a multi-level venue.

Along with Nicholls and host McNeese, other schools taking part in the event include Jacksonville College, LeTourneau, North American, Philander Smith, Southern, St. Thomas, Texas Lutheran, Trinity, and Louisiana-Monroe. All will feature male and female participants. Only males will compete in the event for Southwest Assemblies of God, and Victoria College.

“The field event surfaces are great there, though, so a lot of people will compete in the jumps,” Slekis said. “They allow a lot more people into the jumps at this meet than we got to at LSU. We’re excited to see our big jump squad what they can do as well at this meet.

“We go because it’s a good opportunity to go see McNeese and we know that McNeese is gonna run their best runners.”

Slekis further expounded on the Nicholls short burners moving up to doing their long sprint events at the meet.

“These facilities are better upstairs, so it’s a different setup,” said Slekis. “The McNeese meet, there’s an entry level where all the field events are and the short sprints and hurdles and then you go upstairs to the 200 flat tracks. Everything 200 up is upstairs.

“The only thing that we won’t really focus on there is they run the 55 instead of the 60 there and the surface is different. We’re not going to run that there besides Jinte Braas and Cherie Neal will do it in the multi because they have to, and then we’ll kind of sub in their hurdle times from the LSU meet to have a real idea of what their score we think will be.”