The University of Mississippi Athletics
Friday, April 10
Oxford, Miss.
All Day
Ole Miss
vs
Joe Walker Invite
Track & Field Ready to Host 2026 Joe Walker Invite
4/9/2026 | Track and Field
OXFORD, Miss. – Ole Miss track & field will pay homage to its senior class, as well as a legendary head coach, at the ninth iteration of the Joe Walker Invitational this weekend.
Action at Prefontaine Stadium is set to begin at noon CT on Friday and 10 a.m. CT on Saturday, with both days streaming in their entirety on SECN+.
PROMOTIONS
• Free admission
• Alumni Weekend
• Friday: Free t-shirts (while supplies last)
• Saturday: Free crawfish (while supplies last), Senior Day
FOLLOW ALONG
Live Results: Delta Timing
Live Stream: SEC Network+
Day 1: Noon CT start
Day 2: 10 AM CT start
MEET BREAKDOWN
By the Numbers
15 schools
27 total teams
454 total athletes
743 total entries
Schools
Alabama-Huntsville
Arkansas State
Christian Brothers
Coahoma Community College
Jackson State
Jacksonville State (women only)
Mississippi College
Ole Miss
Ouachita Baptist
Purdue Fort Wayne
Rust College (men only)
Southeast Missouri
Tuskegee
UT Martin
Vanderbilt (women only)
JOE WALKER CAREER NOTES
• This is the ninth Joe Walker Invitational, which is named for the former Ole Miss track & field head coach who led the Rebels to 11 top-20 national finishes while coaching 124 All-Americans, 12 NCAA Champions and 60 SEC Champions during his 30-year career in Oxford from 1979-84 and 1988-2012. Known for his ability to coach elite-level jumpers and hurdlers -- and for his warm and caring persona -- Walker was inducted into the Ole Miss M-Club Alumni Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
SENIOR DAY
• On Saturday, Ole Miss will honor 28 Rebel seniors: Beth Arentz, Sophie Baumann, Aiden Britt, Alicia Burnett, Nyah Edwards, Cade Flatt, Aly Francolini, Lizzie Hatton, Connor Henson, Mason Hickel, Logan Kelley, Joshua Knox, Chanelle Kruger, Landen McNair, Kidus Misgina, Frances Luna, Samantha Ouellette, Marco Perez, Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan, Chase Rose, Gabe Scales, Bryson Smith, Jonathan Stock, Evan Thornton-Sherman, Arvesta Troupe, Carson Turner, Loral Winn and four-year student manager Bailey Wood.
PREFONTAINE STADIUM
• Ole Miss competes at Prefontaine Stadium, which was renamed in 2025 following a $750,000 gift from Ole Miss supporters Debbie and Andy Prefontaine. The Prefontaines became Ole Miss fans when their son, Kevin, attended the university in the 1990s, with Andy choosing Ole Miss track & field's stadium as the destination for his gift in part as a way to honor his cousin, the legendary Steve Prefontaine, who ran at Oregon and was the crown jewel of American distance running before his tragic death at the age of 24.
• Prefontaine Stadium, previously known as the Ole Miss Track & Field Complex, was built in 2004 and received $7.2 million in upgrades in 2017 that can seat 1,500 spectators in its new design. In 2022, a new locker room facility -- the Jerry Hollingsworth Track & Field / Cross Country Facility -- was opened as an addition to the overall complex. Both sets of renovations helped the facility shine for the 2022 SEC Outdoor Championships, which helped generate an estimated $2.8 million in business for the Oxford community.
MEET NOTES
• The Rebel men opened the outdoor season at No. 5 and currently rank No. 6 in the Week Two USTFCCCA Track & Field Rating Index. Of the 42 total top-10 rankings in Ole Miss track & field history, 11th-year head coach Connie Price-Smith owns 39 of them (12 men, 27 women). In the outdoor season, she owns 16 of 18 total top-10 slots (3 men, 13 women), while indoors she owns 23 (9 men, 14 women). In total, Price-Smith has tallied 75 of the 139 outdoor rankings appearances in combined program history (28 men, 47 women).
• Ole Miss is coming off a strong weekend of split action across both LSU's Battle on the Bayou and the Stanford Invite, the latter of which saw two school records come down amid several fast career-best times on the track for both the Rebel men and women.
• Senior Kidus Misgina broke his own 10K record at 28:17.69, while senior Beth Arentz clocked an 11-second PR 15:51.89 to best the prior Ole Miss 5K record by three seconds. Misgina's time leads the SEC and ranks 20th nationally, while Arentz sits at No. 2 in the SEC and No. 27 in the NCAA. Other NCAA top-50 times clocked out at Stanford came from Sergio Del Barrio in the 3000-meter steeplechase (12th, 8:38.05), Evan Thornton-Sherman in the 5K (14th, 13:32.99), Aiden Britt in the 10K (28th, 28:28.35), Sophie Baumann in the 5K (36th, 15:54.69) and Loral Winn in the 5K (39th, 15:55.23).
• At LSU, 14-time All-American and four-time NCAA shot put champion Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan extended his collegiate lead in the shot put at his winning season-best 20.81m/68-03.25, which leads all Americans and ranks fourth worldwide this outdoor season. His performance at LSU, which also included a hammer win over the reigning NCAA runner-up, earned him SEC Field Athlete of the Week honors for the second time in as many attempts this outdoor season.
• Robinson-O'Hagan's superb hammer season open at the Ole Miss Classic two weeks ago still leads the nation by a monster 12-foot margin at his career-best 77.62m/254-8. That throw earned him both the SEC weekly honor and the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week award, as that throw shattered both the facility and all-time Ole Miss records, it stands as the best all-time that early into the collegiate season (March 20), and it made Robinson-O'Hagan the second-best American-born collegian.
• Robinson-O'Hagan's hammer distance, coupled with his outdoor shot PR of 20.88m, improved his career combined collegiate record to 98.50m – making him the first collegian to surpass 98 meters. Combined with his shot put win of 20.42m, his weekend combo alone was a whopping 98.04m. Last June at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Robinson-O'Hagan broke the collegiate record of 97.68m set by Georgia's Denzel Comenentia in 2019 with his then-record of 97.89m. He also ended his indoor career second in collegiate history in combined shot/weight PRs at 45.53m.
• Robinson-O'Hagan is coming off an indoor season that saw him win his fourth career NCAA shot put title, his third in a row indoors. Across his superb career, Robinson-O'Hagan is a four-time national champion, 14-time All-American, 11-time SEC Champion, five-time SEC Field Athlete of the Year, four-time SEC points trophy winner and 12-time SEC medalist with 75 career NCAA points and 124 SEC points scored.
• Ole Miss' relay units are already in full force, with both the Rebel men's 4x100 and 4x400-meter relays contributing greatly toward the No. 5 opening national rank.
• The foursome of Dekell Minor, Jordan Urrutia, Wesley Todd and Tarique Wright opened the season in blazing fashion, winning the 4x100-meter relay at the Ole Miss Classic at 38.98 -- breaking the school record and becoming the first sub-39 relay in Ole Miss history. That time currently ranks fourth in the SEC and eighth nationally
• In the 4x4, the quartet of Todd, Carson Turner, Cade Flatt and Urrutia passed the stick in 3:06.13 for another win, the seventh-best in Ole Miss history and the best by a Rebel 4x4 since 1999. That time ranks 17th nationally, and was helped greatly by a third-leg 46.1 by Flatt and a scorching 45.8 anchor by Urrutia.
• Other Rebel men within the national top-25 are: Sterling Scott in the triple jump (6th, 15.90m/52-2; +2.5), Max Armstrong in the 800-meter (9th, 1:46.98), Dekell Minor in the 100-meter dash (10th, 10.14/+2.2), Kyle Johnson in the triple jump (10th, 15.75m/51-08.25; +1.6), Bryson Smith in the hammer (15th, 67.16m/220-4), Ashton Hearn in the discus (22nd, 58.12m/190-8) and Mason Hickel in the hammer (25th, 65.53m/215-0).
• Ole Miss women within the national top-25 are: Akaoma Odeluga in both the shot put (5th, 17.42m/57-2) and hammer (15th, 64.38m/211-3), Lily Beattie in the pole vault (13th, 4.30m/14-01.25), Lizzie Hatton in the long jump (19th, 6.28m/20-07.25; +2.2) and Nyah Edwards in the hammer (24th, 62.16m/203-11).
• Ole Miss is under the watch of 11th-year head coach Connie Price-Smith, who has led the Rebels to 21 NCAA top-25 team finishes while coaching 23 NCAA individual champions (17 titles), 15 NCAA runners-up, 197 First or Second-Team All-Americans, 456 NCAA points, 84 SEC individual champions and a bevy of the best team finishes in program history on both a conference and national level.
• Price-Smith owns eight of the 11 all-time NCAA top-10 finishes in Ole Miss history: 2025 men's outdoor (T-8th), 2025 men's indoor (T-10th), 2024 women's outdoor (5th), 2024 women's indoor (5th), 2023 women's indoor (10th), 2022 women's indoor (T-6th), 2022 men's indoor (T-10th), 2021 men's indoor (10th).
Action at Prefontaine Stadium is set to begin at noon CT on Friday and 10 a.m. CT on Saturday, with both days streaming in their entirety on SECN+.
PROMOTIONS
• Free admission
• Alumni Weekend
• Friday: Free t-shirts (while supplies last)
• Saturday: Free crawfish (while supplies last), Senior Day
FOLLOW ALONG
Live Results: Delta Timing
Live Stream: SEC Network+
Day 1: Noon CT start
Day 2: 10 AM CT start
MEET BREAKDOWN
By the Numbers
15 schools
27 total teams
454 total athletes
743 total entries
Schools
Alabama-Huntsville
Arkansas State
Christian Brothers
Coahoma Community College
Jackson State
Jacksonville State (women only)
Mississippi College
Ole Miss
Ouachita Baptist
Purdue Fort Wayne
Rust College (men only)
Southeast Missouri
Tuskegee
UT Martin
Vanderbilt (women only)
JOE WALKER CAREER NOTES
• This is the ninth Joe Walker Invitational, which is named for the former Ole Miss track & field head coach who led the Rebels to 11 top-20 national finishes while coaching 124 All-Americans, 12 NCAA Champions and 60 SEC Champions during his 30-year career in Oxford from 1979-84 and 1988-2012. Known for his ability to coach elite-level jumpers and hurdlers -- and for his warm and caring persona -- Walker was inducted into the Ole Miss M-Club Alumni Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
SENIOR DAY
• On Saturday, Ole Miss will honor 28 Rebel seniors: Beth Arentz, Sophie Baumann, Aiden Britt, Alicia Burnett, Nyah Edwards, Cade Flatt, Aly Francolini, Lizzie Hatton, Connor Henson, Mason Hickel, Logan Kelley, Joshua Knox, Chanelle Kruger, Landen McNair, Kidus Misgina, Frances Luna, Samantha Ouellette, Marco Perez, Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan, Chase Rose, Gabe Scales, Bryson Smith, Jonathan Stock, Evan Thornton-Sherman, Arvesta Troupe, Carson Turner, Loral Winn and four-year student manager Bailey Wood.
PREFONTAINE STADIUM
• Ole Miss competes at Prefontaine Stadium, which was renamed in 2025 following a $750,000 gift from Ole Miss supporters Debbie and Andy Prefontaine. The Prefontaines became Ole Miss fans when their son, Kevin, attended the university in the 1990s, with Andy choosing Ole Miss track & field's stadium as the destination for his gift in part as a way to honor his cousin, the legendary Steve Prefontaine, who ran at Oregon and was the crown jewel of American distance running before his tragic death at the age of 24.
• Prefontaine Stadium, previously known as the Ole Miss Track & Field Complex, was built in 2004 and received $7.2 million in upgrades in 2017 that can seat 1,500 spectators in its new design. In 2022, a new locker room facility -- the Jerry Hollingsworth Track & Field / Cross Country Facility -- was opened as an addition to the overall complex. Both sets of renovations helped the facility shine for the 2022 SEC Outdoor Championships, which helped generate an estimated $2.8 million in business for the Oxford community.
MEET NOTES
• The Rebel men opened the outdoor season at No. 5 and currently rank No. 6 in the Week Two USTFCCCA Track & Field Rating Index. Of the 42 total top-10 rankings in Ole Miss track & field history, 11th-year head coach Connie Price-Smith owns 39 of them (12 men, 27 women). In the outdoor season, she owns 16 of 18 total top-10 slots (3 men, 13 women), while indoors she owns 23 (9 men, 14 women). In total, Price-Smith has tallied 75 of the 139 outdoor rankings appearances in combined program history (28 men, 47 women).
• Ole Miss is coming off a strong weekend of split action across both LSU's Battle on the Bayou and the Stanford Invite, the latter of which saw two school records come down amid several fast career-best times on the track for both the Rebel men and women.
• Senior Kidus Misgina broke his own 10K record at 28:17.69, while senior Beth Arentz clocked an 11-second PR 15:51.89 to best the prior Ole Miss 5K record by three seconds. Misgina's time leads the SEC and ranks 20th nationally, while Arentz sits at No. 2 in the SEC and No. 27 in the NCAA. Other NCAA top-50 times clocked out at Stanford came from Sergio Del Barrio in the 3000-meter steeplechase (12th, 8:38.05), Evan Thornton-Sherman in the 5K (14th, 13:32.99), Aiden Britt in the 10K (28th, 28:28.35), Sophie Baumann in the 5K (36th, 15:54.69) and Loral Winn in the 5K (39th, 15:55.23).
• At LSU, 14-time All-American and four-time NCAA shot put champion Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan extended his collegiate lead in the shot put at his winning season-best 20.81m/68-03.25, which leads all Americans and ranks fourth worldwide this outdoor season. His performance at LSU, which also included a hammer win over the reigning NCAA runner-up, earned him SEC Field Athlete of the Week honors for the second time in as many attempts this outdoor season.
• Robinson-O'Hagan's superb hammer season open at the Ole Miss Classic two weeks ago still leads the nation by a monster 12-foot margin at his career-best 77.62m/254-8. That throw earned him both the SEC weekly honor and the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week award, as that throw shattered both the facility and all-time Ole Miss records, it stands as the best all-time that early into the collegiate season (March 20), and it made Robinson-O'Hagan the second-best American-born collegian.
• Robinson-O'Hagan's hammer distance, coupled with his outdoor shot PR of 20.88m, improved his career combined collegiate record to 98.50m – making him the first collegian to surpass 98 meters. Combined with his shot put win of 20.42m, his weekend combo alone was a whopping 98.04m. Last June at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Robinson-O'Hagan broke the collegiate record of 97.68m set by Georgia's Denzel Comenentia in 2019 with his then-record of 97.89m. He also ended his indoor career second in collegiate history in combined shot/weight PRs at 45.53m.
• Robinson-O'Hagan is coming off an indoor season that saw him win his fourth career NCAA shot put title, his third in a row indoors. Across his superb career, Robinson-O'Hagan is a four-time national champion, 14-time All-American, 11-time SEC Champion, five-time SEC Field Athlete of the Year, four-time SEC points trophy winner and 12-time SEC medalist with 75 career NCAA points and 124 SEC points scored.
• Ole Miss' relay units are already in full force, with both the Rebel men's 4x100 and 4x400-meter relays contributing greatly toward the No. 5 opening national rank.
• The foursome of Dekell Minor, Jordan Urrutia, Wesley Todd and Tarique Wright opened the season in blazing fashion, winning the 4x100-meter relay at the Ole Miss Classic at 38.98 -- breaking the school record and becoming the first sub-39 relay in Ole Miss history. That time currently ranks fourth in the SEC and eighth nationally
• In the 4x4, the quartet of Todd, Carson Turner, Cade Flatt and Urrutia passed the stick in 3:06.13 for another win, the seventh-best in Ole Miss history and the best by a Rebel 4x4 since 1999. That time ranks 17th nationally, and was helped greatly by a third-leg 46.1 by Flatt and a scorching 45.8 anchor by Urrutia.
• Other Rebel men within the national top-25 are: Sterling Scott in the triple jump (6th, 15.90m/52-2; +2.5), Max Armstrong in the 800-meter (9th, 1:46.98), Dekell Minor in the 100-meter dash (10th, 10.14/+2.2), Kyle Johnson in the triple jump (10th, 15.75m/51-08.25; +1.6), Bryson Smith in the hammer (15th, 67.16m/220-4), Ashton Hearn in the discus (22nd, 58.12m/190-8) and Mason Hickel in the hammer (25th, 65.53m/215-0).
• Ole Miss women within the national top-25 are: Akaoma Odeluga in both the shot put (5th, 17.42m/57-2) and hammer (15th, 64.38m/211-3), Lily Beattie in the pole vault (13th, 4.30m/14-01.25), Lizzie Hatton in the long jump (19th, 6.28m/20-07.25; +2.2) and Nyah Edwards in the hammer (24th, 62.16m/203-11).
• Ole Miss is under the watch of 11th-year head coach Connie Price-Smith, who has led the Rebels to 21 NCAA top-25 team finishes while coaching 23 NCAA individual champions (17 titles), 15 NCAA runners-up, 197 First or Second-Team All-Americans, 456 NCAA points, 84 SEC individual champions and a bevy of the best team finishes in program history on both a conference and national level.
• Price-Smith owns eight of the 11 all-time NCAA top-10 finishes in Ole Miss history: 2025 men's outdoor (T-8th), 2025 men's indoor (T-10th), 2024 women's outdoor (5th), 2024 women's indoor (5th), 2023 women's indoor (10th), 2022 women's indoor (T-6th), 2022 men's indoor (T-10th), 2021 men's indoor (10th).
Players Mentioned
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Sprints
/ Track and FieldINTERVIEW: Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan Talks NCAA Shot Three-Peat
Saturday, March 14
HIGHLIGHTS: Alicia Burnett Finishes Fourth in NCAA 60-Meter Final
Saturday, March 14
HIGHLIGHTS: Akaoma Odeluga Finishes NCAA Runner-Up in Shot Put
Saturday, March 14
HIGHLIGHTS: Tarik Robinson-O'Hagan Wins Third Straight NCAA Indoor Shot Put Title
Saturday, March 14