THIBODAUX, La. – The Nicholls State University track and field teams will compete in the McNeese Indoor II at Ralph O. Ward Rec Complex in Lake Charles on Friday, Jan. 30.
 
Nicholls will be facing off against Wiley, Southwestern, Letourneau, Southern Arkansas, Texas Lutheran, Louisiana, and McNeese. The Colonels had a strong showing in their season opener as the teams combined to have 24 top 10 finishes at the LSU Purple Tiger in Baton Rouge a few weeks ago.
 
Nicholls Head coach Stefanie Slekis is excited about the team returning to action.

"I am really excited for our team to get back to competing at McNeese. Despite the cold temperatures we have still had some great training days since our opener at LSU. McNeese is a great opportunity for us to get another competition rep for our field event student-athletes and for those on the track to either run above or below their goal race distance as we continue a big training block before our peak meets in February," Slekis said.

Slekis also spoke about some of the motivatting factors for some of the student-athletes.

"We still have some student-athletes that will be chasing our all-time top 10 lists and we are excited to have put together a men's all-time top 10 list that should be posted before our next meet in Birmingham. We encourage alumni to check the list once we post it to see if we are missing any of the top performers since we are working off of historical information we have and recent performances after the program was reinstated in 2019 after a 15 year hiatus," Slekis said.

The Colonels performance on the track at LSU included most of the top 10 marks was highlighted by Issy Rivault who won the women's 2000-meter race with a time of 6:44.88. The Red & Gray dominated the race as she was joined by Kassidy Besson (7:02.42), Ana Letran Cartes (7:08.29), Gracie Daigle (7:14.16), Lotte Aerts (7:21), Payton Theriot (7:25.59), and Gabriella O'Neal (7:42.72) who finished third, fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and 10th , respectively.
 
The Colonels strong performances continued into the other distance races. Rivault also took fifth in the women's one mile race with a time of 5:08.58 while Isabelle Seijhouwer placed sixth with a personal best time of 5:08.73. In the women's 1000-meter race Letran Cartes (3:08.46) placed seventh, Besson (3:09.12) took eighth, and Aerts (3:15.34) finished 10th. Anne De Jong placed ninth in the women's 400-meter race with a personal best time of 1:03.87 while Seijhouwer earned fourth place in the women's 600-meter race with a personal best time of 1:39.41.
 
The men's squad also shined on the track as Trent Granberry placed 10th in the men's 400-meter race with a time of 53.08. In the men's 1000-meter race, Mason Heffernan and William Nizzo finished sixth and seventh with times of 2:3965 and 2:40.30. The pair of Heffernan and Nizzo also finished seventh and eighth in the 2000-meter race with times of 6:04.54 and 6:04.55. Christian Rowe and Brison Legnon joined them in the top 10 as they claimed ninth and 10th place with times of 6:17.39 and 6:18.79.
 
In the field, Benjamin Rodrigue soared 14.02 meters to place fourth in the men's triple jump. Iradi Blasco leaped a personal best 1.68m to finish fifth in the women's high jump. Chad Clark Jr. had a 6.41m mark to place eighth in the men's long jump.