The University of Mississippi Athletics

Track & Field to Open Season at Vanderbilt
1/11/2024 | Track and Field
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Ole Miss track & field is back in action, as the Rebels open the 2024 indoor season at Vanderbilt's Commodore Challenge this weekend (Jan. 12-13).
MEET NOTES
• This marks the first of three stops to Vanderbilt this indoor season for Ole Miss, with subsequent trips to Nashville on Jan. 19-20 for the Vanderbilt Invitational and Feb. 9-10 for the Music City Challenge.
• Ole Miss also has two trips to Arkansas on Jan. 26-27 for the Razorback Invitational and Feb. 9-10 for the Tyson Invitational, with stops in between at Boston University for the David Hemery Valentine Invitational (Feb. 9-10) and at Notre Dame for the Alex Wilson Invite (Feb. 17). The Rebels return to Fayetteville for the 2024 SEC Indoor Championships on Feb. 22-24 before hopping on another flight to Boston for the 2024 NCAA Indoor Championships on March 8-9.
• Ole Miss enters year nine under head coach Connie Price-Smith, whose Rebels will look to once again build off a historic campaign last season that saw three top-25 national team finishes, one NCAA champion, five NCAA runners-up, 23 First or Second-Team All-Americans, four SEC champions, 19 SEC medalists and a handful of the best national rankings and SEC finishes in program history.
• Across both the indoor and outdoor track seasons under Price-Smith, the Rebels have had 13 NCAA top-25 team finishes, 11 NCAA individual champions, 13 NCAA runners-up, 153 First or Second-Team All-Americans, 284 NCAA points, 67 SEC individual champions and a bevy of the best team finishes in program history at both the SEC and NCAA levels.
• In 23 seasons as a head coach at both Ole Miss and Southern Illinois dating back to 2002, Price-Smith has collected 16 NCAA event titles and mentored 226 All-Americans on the track.
• In Ole Miss history across both seasons, 25 Rebels have won NCAA titles and 211 have earned First-Team All-America honors, while as a team Ole Miss has tallied 36 top-25 team finishes and scored 764.5 total national points.
• In its history indoors, Ole Miss has finished in the NCA top-25 of the team standings 21 total times (14 times on the men's side, seven for the women).
• Four of the seven all-time NCAA top-10 track finishes in Ole Miss history have come within the last three years: 2023 women's indoor (10th), 2022 women's indoor (T-6th), 2022 men's indoor (T-10th), 2021 men's indoor (10th), 2013 men's outdoor (8th), 2001 men's indoor (10th) and 1991 men's indoor (9th).
• Ole Miss owns 149 First or Second-Team All-Americans indoors (94 men, 55 women), as well as 11 NCAA titles (14 total NCAA Champions; 10 men, four women). Of those 149, a total of 87 All-Americans (52 men, 35 women) have come under Price-Smith, as well as five NCAA titles (Raven Saunders, shot put, 2017; men's DMR, 2017; Shey Taiwo, weight throw, 2022; Mario Garcia Romo, mile, 2022; Jalani Davis, weight throw, 2023).
• Ole Miss has won 53 SEC Indoor titles (38 men, 15 women) with 80 SEC Champions (62 men, 18 women).
• Combined, the Rebels were particularly powerful indoors in 2023, ranking as one of just eight schools nationally to place both its men's and women's teams within the top-15. Across 2022 and 2023, Ole Miss stands alongside just Arkansas and Texas as the only schools to finish top-15 indoors in both men's and women's competition in each season.
• The Rebel women put together one of their best overall seasons, setting program-best SEC finishes after taking fourth both indoors and outdoors. The Ole Miss women were 10th at the indoor national meet, their second-best NCAA finish ever and their second consecutive top-10 finish indoors. Outdoors, the Rebel women were among the best all season long, topping out at a women's program record No. 7 national ranking while also breaking the school record for consecutive weeks in the top-10 at seven.
• Ole Miss returns two of the most exciting women's athletes in the nation for their senior seasons in reigning NCAA weight throw champion Jalani Davis and electric sprinter McKenzie Long.
• Davis was the best in the weight throw wire-to-wire in 2023, a season that saw her become the No. 5 performer in NCAA history at 24.63m/80-09.75 and also become the first woman in world history to break 80 feet in the weight throw and 60 feet in the shot put. Davis followed that up with a trip to the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August after a bronze medal finish in the shot put at the U.S. Championships earlier in the summer.
• Long, meanwhile, took the track world by storm with a demonstrative comeback season – her first as a Rebel. Long ended the season with four All-America awards, an SEC title and two total SEC medals, but it was her NCAA runner-up finish in the 200-meter dash outdoors that put her into another category in NCAA history. Long crossed the line at a slightly windy but blistering 21.88 (+2.5), making her the third-best collegian ever in all-conditions and putting her near the top of the formchart heading into her final season of competition in 2024.
• The Ole Miss men, meanwhile, notched a program record third consecutive top-15 national finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and also set an overall program record for top national ranking at No. 5 in the indoor index for Week One. That indoor finish was helped greatly by a thrilling NCAA runner-up performance by the men's distance medley relay – of which returns sophomore middle distance specialist Cade Flatt.
• But 2023 for the Rebel men, from start to finish, was centered around the dominance of thrower Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan in his superb freshman campaign.
• Robinson-O'Hagan entered as a highly-touted recruit fresh off a World U20 title in the shot put in the summer of 2022. As a freshman, he immediately put himself into national title contention, qualifying for nationals and earning All-America honors four times across the weight throw indoors and hammer outdoors, as well as the shot put in both seasons. Robinson-O'Hagan set the collegiate freshman record in the weight throw indoors at 23.62m/77-6 before finishing third nationally – the best by a freshman since 2013 – and he followed that outdoors with an SEC hammer title and an eighth-place finish in the deepest NCAA hammer final ever.
• Ole Miss welcomes in an excellent class of newcomers, with a total of 24 new Rebels joining the roster for the 2024 season. Of those 24, a total of 11 came from the transfer portal, with nine women's freshman and four men's freshmen rounding out the newcomers.
• Transferring to Ole Miss this season are: jumper Eni Akinniyi (Georgetown), jumper Guy Bond (Bethune-Cookman), sprinter Jahniya Bowers (Youngstown State), thrower Jake Dalton (Dartmouth) sprinter Hannah Foxx (Tennessee), distance runner Toby Gillen (Saint Louis), distance runner Cruz Gomez (Texas), distance runner Jo-Lauren Keane (West Virginia), sprinter Akilah Lewis (Minnesota), distance runner Jack Meijer (Wisconsin) and pole vaulter Drew O'Connor (Memphis).
• Rebel women's freshmen this year are: pole vaulter Mary Cate Doughty (Malvern, Pa.), pole vaulter Aly Francolini (Venice, Fla.), distance runner Adie Luna (O'Fallon, Mo.), thrower Akaoma Odeluga (Munster, Ind.), distance runner Brooke Preputnick (Hershey, Pa.), distance runner Ella Rodwell (Brisbane, Australia), thrower Skylar Soli (College Park, Ga.), thrower Mensi Stiff (Lewisburg, Tenn.) and thrower Naomi Woolfolk (Woodbridge, Va.).
• Men's freshmen starting this year are all distance runners: Zack Gilbertson (Pinehurst, N.C.), Aidan Hodge (Lancaster, Pa.), Stone Smith (Mobile, Ala.) and Caden Townshend (Charlotte, N.C.).
• Highlighting that freshman class this past summer was the throwing duo of Stiff and Soli, who both won medals for Team USA at the Pan American U20 Championships in Puerto Rico. Stiff won the shot put at a two-foot PR of 16.70m/54-09.50 to win by five feet, while Soli was the silver medalist in the hammer at an 11-foot best of 59.13m/194-00.
• The first USTFCCCA National Rating Index for the indoor season is due out in two weeks.
• The Rebel women ended the 2023 regular season ranked No. 9 in the national poll, tied for third-highest in women's program history indoors. In its history indoors, Ole Miss has appeared in the national top-10 a total of 18 times – 13 from the Ole Miss women, and five from the Rebel men. Of those 18 indoor top-10 appearances, 17 have come under the supervision of ninth-year head coach Connie Price-Smith.
• All-time, both Rebel units have been nationally ranked at the same time indoors 18 total times -- all occurring within the past four seasons since first happening in Week Two of the 2021 indoor campaign.
• Overall, the Rebel men have appeared in the indoor national top-25 47 times since first appearing in 2010, and the Ole Miss women have done so 50 times since first doing so in 2008. Of those 97 combined indoor rankings, Price-Smith has claimed 64 total appearances indoors (42 women, 22 men).
• The Rebel women have been ranked in 27 of the last 29 releases dating back to the Preseason release for the 2020 indoor season, including a current streak of 20 in a row dating back to Week Two of the 2021 campaign.
• The Rebel men opened the 2023 indoor season at an overall program record No. 5 in Week One -- breaking the record across the Ole Miss indoor, outdoor and cross country seasons, both men and women – set by the 2021 men's indoor squad that ranked No. 6 in Week Two.
MEET NOTES
• This marks the first of three stops to Vanderbilt this indoor season for Ole Miss, with subsequent trips to Nashville on Jan. 19-20 for the Vanderbilt Invitational and Feb. 9-10 for the Music City Challenge.
• Ole Miss also has two trips to Arkansas on Jan. 26-27 for the Razorback Invitational and Feb. 9-10 for the Tyson Invitational, with stops in between at Boston University for the David Hemery Valentine Invitational (Feb. 9-10) and at Notre Dame for the Alex Wilson Invite (Feb. 17). The Rebels return to Fayetteville for the 2024 SEC Indoor Championships on Feb. 22-24 before hopping on another flight to Boston for the 2024 NCAA Indoor Championships on March 8-9.
• Ole Miss enters year nine under head coach Connie Price-Smith, whose Rebels will look to once again build off a historic campaign last season that saw three top-25 national team finishes, one NCAA champion, five NCAA runners-up, 23 First or Second-Team All-Americans, four SEC champions, 19 SEC medalists and a handful of the best national rankings and SEC finishes in program history.
• Across both the indoor and outdoor track seasons under Price-Smith, the Rebels have had 13 NCAA top-25 team finishes, 11 NCAA individual champions, 13 NCAA runners-up, 153 First or Second-Team All-Americans, 284 NCAA points, 67 SEC individual champions and a bevy of the best team finishes in program history at both the SEC and NCAA levels.
• In 23 seasons as a head coach at both Ole Miss and Southern Illinois dating back to 2002, Price-Smith has collected 16 NCAA event titles and mentored 226 All-Americans on the track.
• In Ole Miss history across both seasons, 25 Rebels have won NCAA titles and 211 have earned First-Team All-America honors, while as a team Ole Miss has tallied 36 top-25 team finishes and scored 764.5 total national points.
• In its history indoors, Ole Miss has finished in the NCA top-25 of the team standings 21 total times (14 times on the men's side, seven for the women).
• Four of the seven all-time NCAA top-10 track finishes in Ole Miss history have come within the last three years: 2023 women's indoor (10th), 2022 women's indoor (T-6th), 2022 men's indoor (T-10th), 2021 men's indoor (10th), 2013 men's outdoor (8th), 2001 men's indoor (10th) and 1991 men's indoor (9th).
• Ole Miss owns 149 First or Second-Team All-Americans indoors (94 men, 55 women), as well as 11 NCAA titles (14 total NCAA Champions; 10 men, four women). Of those 149, a total of 87 All-Americans (52 men, 35 women) have come under Price-Smith, as well as five NCAA titles (Raven Saunders, shot put, 2017; men's DMR, 2017; Shey Taiwo, weight throw, 2022; Mario Garcia Romo, mile, 2022; Jalani Davis, weight throw, 2023).
• Ole Miss has won 53 SEC Indoor titles (38 men, 15 women) with 80 SEC Champions (62 men, 18 women).
• Combined, the Rebels were particularly powerful indoors in 2023, ranking as one of just eight schools nationally to place both its men's and women's teams within the top-15. Across 2022 and 2023, Ole Miss stands alongside just Arkansas and Texas as the only schools to finish top-15 indoors in both men's and women's competition in each season.
• The Rebel women put together one of their best overall seasons, setting program-best SEC finishes after taking fourth both indoors and outdoors. The Ole Miss women were 10th at the indoor national meet, their second-best NCAA finish ever and their second consecutive top-10 finish indoors. Outdoors, the Rebel women were among the best all season long, topping out at a women's program record No. 7 national ranking while also breaking the school record for consecutive weeks in the top-10 at seven.
• Ole Miss returns two of the most exciting women's athletes in the nation for their senior seasons in reigning NCAA weight throw champion Jalani Davis and electric sprinter McKenzie Long.
• Davis was the best in the weight throw wire-to-wire in 2023, a season that saw her become the No. 5 performer in NCAA history at 24.63m/80-09.75 and also become the first woman in world history to break 80 feet in the weight throw and 60 feet in the shot put. Davis followed that up with a trip to the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August after a bronze medal finish in the shot put at the U.S. Championships earlier in the summer.
• Long, meanwhile, took the track world by storm with a demonstrative comeback season – her first as a Rebel. Long ended the season with four All-America awards, an SEC title and two total SEC medals, but it was her NCAA runner-up finish in the 200-meter dash outdoors that put her into another category in NCAA history. Long crossed the line at a slightly windy but blistering 21.88 (+2.5), making her the third-best collegian ever in all-conditions and putting her near the top of the formchart heading into her final season of competition in 2024.
• The Ole Miss men, meanwhile, notched a program record third consecutive top-15 national finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and also set an overall program record for top national ranking at No. 5 in the indoor index for Week One. That indoor finish was helped greatly by a thrilling NCAA runner-up performance by the men's distance medley relay – of which returns sophomore middle distance specialist Cade Flatt.
• But 2023 for the Rebel men, from start to finish, was centered around the dominance of thrower Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan in his superb freshman campaign.
• Robinson-O'Hagan entered as a highly-touted recruit fresh off a World U20 title in the shot put in the summer of 2022. As a freshman, he immediately put himself into national title contention, qualifying for nationals and earning All-America honors four times across the weight throw indoors and hammer outdoors, as well as the shot put in both seasons. Robinson-O'Hagan set the collegiate freshman record in the weight throw indoors at 23.62m/77-6 before finishing third nationally – the best by a freshman since 2013 – and he followed that outdoors with an SEC hammer title and an eighth-place finish in the deepest NCAA hammer final ever.
• Ole Miss welcomes in an excellent class of newcomers, with a total of 24 new Rebels joining the roster for the 2024 season. Of those 24, a total of 11 came from the transfer portal, with nine women's freshman and four men's freshmen rounding out the newcomers.
• Transferring to Ole Miss this season are: jumper Eni Akinniyi (Georgetown), jumper Guy Bond (Bethune-Cookman), sprinter Jahniya Bowers (Youngstown State), thrower Jake Dalton (Dartmouth) sprinter Hannah Foxx (Tennessee), distance runner Toby Gillen (Saint Louis), distance runner Cruz Gomez (Texas), distance runner Jo-Lauren Keane (West Virginia), sprinter Akilah Lewis (Minnesota), distance runner Jack Meijer (Wisconsin) and pole vaulter Drew O'Connor (Memphis).
• Rebel women's freshmen this year are: pole vaulter Mary Cate Doughty (Malvern, Pa.), pole vaulter Aly Francolini (Venice, Fla.), distance runner Adie Luna (O'Fallon, Mo.), thrower Akaoma Odeluga (Munster, Ind.), distance runner Brooke Preputnick (Hershey, Pa.), distance runner Ella Rodwell (Brisbane, Australia), thrower Skylar Soli (College Park, Ga.), thrower Mensi Stiff (Lewisburg, Tenn.) and thrower Naomi Woolfolk (Woodbridge, Va.).
• Men's freshmen starting this year are all distance runners: Zack Gilbertson (Pinehurst, N.C.), Aidan Hodge (Lancaster, Pa.), Stone Smith (Mobile, Ala.) and Caden Townshend (Charlotte, N.C.).
• Highlighting that freshman class this past summer was the throwing duo of Stiff and Soli, who both won medals for Team USA at the Pan American U20 Championships in Puerto Rico. Stiff won the shot put at a two-foot PR of 16.70m/54-09.50 to win by five feet, while Soli was the silver medalist in the hammer at an 11-foot best of 59.13m/194-00.
• The first USTFCCCA National Rating Index for the indoor season is due out in two weeks.
• The Rebel women ended the 2023 regular season ranked No. 9 in the national poll, tied for third-highest in women's program history indoors. In its history indoors, Ole Miss has appeared in the national top-10 a total of 18 times – 13 from the Ole Miss women, and five from the Rebel men. Of those 18 indoor top-10 appearances, 17 have come under the supervision of ninth-year head coach Connie Price-Smith.
• All-time, both Rebel units have been nationally ranked at the same time indoors 18 total times -- all occurring within the past four seasons since first happening in Week Two of the 2021 indoor campaign.
• Overall, the Rebel men have appeared in the indoor national top-25 47 times since first appearing in 2010, and the Ole Miss women have done so 50 times since first doing so in 2008. Of those 97 combined indoor rankings, Price-Smith has claimed 64 total appearances indoors (42 women, 22 men).
• The Rebel women have been ranked in 27 of the last 29 releases dating back to the Preseason release for the 2020 indoor season, including a current streak of 20 in a row dating back to Week Two of the 2021 campaign.
• The Rebel men opened the 2023 indoor season at an overall program record No. 5 in Week One -- breaking the record across the Ole Miss indoor, outdoor and cross country seasons, both men and women – set by the 2021 men's indoor squad that ranked No. 6 in Week Two.
| Vanderbilt Invitational, Master Schedule (all times CT) | ||
| Day One | Friday, January 12 | ||
| Time | Event | Athlete(s) |
| 12:00 PM | Men's High Jump | Guy Bond Arvesta Troupe |
| 1:30 PM | Women's High Jump (Seeded) | Kayla Jemison |
| Women's High Jump | Laurel Fulcher LaRiah Shannon |
|
| 2:00 PM | Men's Weight Throw | Costen Campion (Flight 2) Mason Hickel (Flight 2) Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan (Flight 2) |
| 3:00 PM | Women's Long Jump | Laurel Fulcher (Flight 1) Skye Gross (Flight 2) Kyla McLaurin (Flight 2) |
| Men's Pole Vault | Frankie Amore Logan Kelley Ford Maberry Drew O'Connor Miles Walden |
|
| 4:30 PM | Women's Weight Throw | Jalani Davis (Flight 2) Jasmine Mitchell (Flight 2) Akaoma Odeluga (Flight 2) Naomi Woolfolk (Flight 2) |
| 5:00 PM | Women's 200-Meter Dash | Gracyn Yelverton (Heat 4, Lane 6) |
| 5:20 PM | Men's 200-Meter Dash | Tristyn Wooley (Heat 1, Lane 3) |
| 5:40 PM | Women's 1000-Meter | Madison Hulsey (Heat 1) |
| 5:55 PM | Men's 1000-Meter | Aidan Hodge (Heat 1) Cole Piotrowski (Heat 1) Gabe Scales (Heat 1) |
| 6:00 PM | Men's Long Jump | Pierce Genereux (Flight 1) Gavin Nembhard (Flight 1) Carson Walls (Flight 1) Iangelo Atkinstall-Daley (Flight 2) Ryan Star (Flight 2) |
| 6:10 PM | Women's 600-Meter | Jocelyn Long (Heat 1) |
| 6:20 PM | Men's 600-Meter | Cade Flatt (Heat 1) Carson Turner (Heat 1) |
| 6:40 PM | Women's 300-Meter Dash | Gabrielle Matthews (Heat 1, Lane 4) Jahniya Bowers (Heat 1, Lane 6) Olivia Womack (Heat 3, Lane 4) Hannah Foxx (Heat 3, Lane 5) |
| 7:00 PM | Men's 300-Meter Dash | Pierce Genereux (Heat 7, Lane 3) |
| Day Two | Saturday, January 13 | ||
| 10:00 AM | Men's Shot Put | Pierce Genereux (Flight 1) Mason Hickel (Flight 2) Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan (Flight 2) |
| 12:00 PM | Women's Pole Vault | Mary Cate Doughty Aly Francolini Raylynn Gibbs Kathryn Hosp Samara McConnell |
| Women's 60-Meter Hurdles (Prelims) | Laurel Fulcher (Heat 2, Lane 8) Jerricka Ambus (Heat 3, Lane 4) |
|
| 12:20 PM | Men's 60-Meter Hurdles (Prelims) | Pierce Genereux (Heat 2, Lane 1) Deshaun Jones (Heat 2, Lane 4) |
| 12:35 PM | Women's 60-Meter Dash (Prelims) | Jerricka Ambus (Heat 2, Lane 4) Olivia Womack (Heat 4, Lane 4) Hannah Foxx (Heat 4, Lane 5) Akilah Lewis (Heat 5, Lane 6) |
| 12:50 PM | Men's 60-Meter Dash (Prelims) | Ryan Star (Heat 2, Lane 1) Tristyn Wooley (Heat 5, Lane 3) |
| 1:00 PM | Men's Triple Jump | Iangelo Atkinstall-Daley Gavin Nembhard |
| Women's Triple Jump | Kayla Jemison (Flight 2) Kyla McLaurin (Flight 2) |
|
| Women's Shot Put (Seeded) | Jalani Davis Jasmine Mitchell Akaoma Odeluga Mensi Stiff |
|
| 1:05 PM | Women's Mile | Frances Luna (Heat 1) |
| 1:30 PM | Men's Mile | Zack Gilbertson (Heat 1) Landen McNair (Heat 1) Miles Phillips (Heat 2) Stone Smith (Heat 2) |
| 2:05 PM | Men's 60-Meter Hurdles (Final) | -- |
| 2:15 PM | Women's 60-Meter Hurdles (Final) | -- |
| 2:25 PM | Men's 60-Meter Dash (Final) | -- |
| 2:30 PM | Women's 60-Meter Dash (Final) | -- |
| 2:35 PM | Women's 400-Meter Dash | McKenzie Long (Heat 1, Lane 5) Gracyn Yelverton (Heat 3, Lane 3) |
| 2:45 PM | Women's Shot Put | Naomi Woolfolk (Flight 2) |
| 3:05 PM | Women's 800-Meter | Jenna Kirby (Heat 2) |
| 3:15 PM | Men's 800-Meter | Marcus Dropik (Heat 1) Cole Piotrowski (Heat 1) |
| 3:30 PM | Women's 3K | Ella Rodwell (Heat 1) |
| 3:45 PM | Men's 3K | Caden Townshend (Heat 1) |
| 4:10 PM | Women's 4x400-Meter Relay | -- |
| 4:35 PM | Men's 4x400-Meter Relay | -- |
Players Mentioned
The Season: New Heights (2025)
Friday, August 01
From Walk-On to National Champ: Arvesta Troupe (T&F)
Monday, June 23
HIGHLIGHTS: Arvesta Troupe Makes History as NCAA High Jump Champ
Friday, June 13
PRESSER: Arvesta Troupe Talks Historic NCAA High Jump Win
Friday, June 13



















































































