Track & Field Seeks National Tickets at NCAA East Regional

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Ole Miss track & field is looking for a big haul of tickets to the outdoor national meet, as the Rebels are set with 35 entries from 29 student-athletes at this week’s 2023 NCAA East Region Preliminary Round Championships.
 
MEET NOTES
 
• Competition will run May 24-27 at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium, and fans can watch the evening track action live on ESPN+.
 
• The 35 total regional entries for Ole Miss ranks as the second-most in school history, trailing only the record 43 set by the 2021 Rebel squad. In eight years at Ole Miss, head coach Connie Price-Smith has averaged 30.6 athletes and 34.3 entries at the regional meet, and from there she has sent an average of 12.2 athletes and 10.7 entries to the national meet.
 
• In her Ole Miss tenure, Price-Smith has mentored three NCAA Outdoor Champions (Raven Saunders, shot put, 2016; Janeah Stewart, hammer, 2018; Sintayehu Vissa, 1500-meter, 2022), 61 outdoor First or Second-Team All-Americans (39 women, 22 men) and brought the Rebels four national top-25 team finishes outdoors – with the Rebel men tying for 14th in 2017 and the women tying for 19th in 2022, finishing 20th in 2018 and 22nd in 2016.
 
• The Rebel women lead the way with 19 entries from 14 athletes, while the Rebel men tallied 16 entries from 15 athletes. Among those are a total of nine Ole Miss student-athletes competing in their first regional meet (eight men, one woman).
 
• A total of eight Rebels will be attempting at least a double (seven women, one man), with senior sprinter and SEC 200-meter champion McKenzie Long attempting a triple in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 4×100-meter relay.
 
• To qualify for this first round of the NCAA Championships, student-athletes must have finished the season ranked within the top-48 of their individual events or as a member of a top-24 relay team on their respective regional qualifying list (East or West), which was released by the NCAA last Thursday. The top-12 athletes in the men’s decathlon and women’s heptathlon in the East and West automatically receive entry to the national meet. From there, the top-12 finishers in each event at each regional meet advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, which will be held this year at the University of Texas on June 7-10.
 

• The Ole Miss women are coming…