LAFAYETTE Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns track and field coach Lon Badeaux announced on Friday the 2019 schedule that features a pair of outdoor home meets, along with competition at the Florida Relays and the Mt. SAC Relays.

Louisiana opens its indoor schedule on Jan. 11 at Texas A&M's Ted Nelson Invitational in College Station, Texas, before opening its outdoor season on March 9 at the McNeese Cowboy Relays.

During the indoor season, Louisiana will also participate at the Samford Multi/Invite (Jan. 17-19), the McNeese Indoor (Jan. 25), LSU Bayou Bengal (Feb. 1) and Samford Open (Feb. 8) before competing at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships Feb. 18-19 in Birmingham, Ala.

"Getting started with a scored meet at Texas A&M is always fun," Badeaux said. "We put an importance on trying to win actual (scored) track meets, which is not done as often anymore. We try to put ourselves in situations that allow us to (compete) in some good competition, at venues like LSU, Texas A&M and Birmingham and get used to the team concept of track and field."

The Ragin' Cajuns, who will compete at the Florida Relays on March 28-30 and Mt. SAC Relays April 18-20, will host the first of two home meets during the 2019 season with the annual Louisiana Classics on March 15-16. Louisiana will host the Cole-Lancon Conference Challenge on April 13 that is scheduled to feature four in-state teams.

"Outdoor, we're doing something a little different by going to big meets at Florida," said Badeaux, "taking a small group to the Mt. SAC Relays and put ourselves in those regional/national type of qualifiers and compete against the best competition.

"The exciting part is going to be our second home meet this year. The Louisiana Classic looks like it's going to be successful again with the teams coming in, but we did come up a concept meet for the second home event. It's going to be very fan-friendly ... another scored meet against four other in-state schools from different conferences."

Louisiana will also compete at the SFA Decathlon/Heptathlon (April 4-5), the McNeese Invitational (April 6), LSU Alumni Gold (April 20) and Southern Miss Open (April 26-27) before the Sun Belt Conference Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 10-12 in Jonesboro, Ark.

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