MOREHEAD, Ky. – The Morehead State track and field teams will make three trips each to Huntington, W.Va. and Louisville, Ky., for the 2025-26 slate as part of a 12-meet schedule for the indoor and outdoor seasons coach
Clay Dixon announced.
The schedule looks familiar to recent years and will again open on Saturday, Dec. 6, which matches last year's start, the second earliest in known school history.
It is the fifth straight campaign in which the Eagles will travel to Marshall University for three indoor meets while also running in the Derby City at least twice, with one competition in both the indoor and outdoor seasons.
This February, the Ohio Valley Conference Championships will take place in Louisville at the Norton Healthcare Sports & Learning Center in Louisville, having spent last year in Indianapolis after the previous five incarnations were held in Birmingham, Ala. It is the only banked indoor track in the state and one of only 12 hydraulically-controlled such systems in the world.
"We are pretty lucky having two great facilities we can compete at for indoor season. It may not be the flashiest schedule, but we get the job done and compete against some pretty high-quality competition," Dixon said. "We get to compete at the Louisville indoor track twice, which is important since our conference championship will be there this year. Getting everyone some experience on a banked track is always important."
Although the schedule is complete, Dixon envisions likely sending different groups of athletes to multiple simultaneous meets during the outdoor season. It is part of the growth in diversifying the events in which the Eagles will participate and will give his troops the opportunity to experience more competitions suited to meet the specific needs of the athletes.
For the fifth straight year and the sixth time in the last seven, MSU will begin the season at the Marshall Opener. In last December's unscored competition, the Blue and Gold had standout performances in the sprints. MSU's women finished second at the meet in 2022 and 2023, and third in 2020. The 2021 meet was not held due to Covid-19.
The sprinters and jumpers are expected to make up the majority of the entries, with the distance crew still winding down from the cross country season that ended in mid-November. It will mark the second time that Morehead State will send a full squad of male sprinters and jumpers to the meet since the resumption of the men's indoor program in 2023-24.
In January, the Eagles will be back in Huntington for the Marshall Alumni Classic on Saturday, Jan. 10 and the Marshall Jewel City Invitational on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6-7.
In 2022, the women finished third at the Alumni Classic and seventh at the Invitational. In 2023, they were seventh and eighth, respectively. The men have run at the Alumni Classic in 2024 and 2025, and the Invitational in each of the last four seasons, placing fifth in both 2022 and 2023 in the latter event. Neither of the 2024 or 2025 meets were scored.
The women have run at the Alumni Classic every year since 2018 and the Invitational every year since 2017, in both cases except for 2021.
In between the latter two Marshall meets, the Eagles will compete in the PNC Bank Bellarmine Classic on Friday, Jan. 23 at the Norton Center. Although the meet has shifted dates over the years, it will mark the third straight season MSU will have run in it. The competition was unscored last January. In 2023, the men tied for 19th and the women were 23rd.
The first two-day meet will be the PNC Lenny Lyles Invitational back at the Norton Center, but this time hosted by the University of Louisville. It will take place on Friday, Jan. 30 and Saturday, Jan. 31. It will be the second year the Eagles will participate at the event. Last February,
Lucy Singleton recorded the then-fastest indoor mile mark in known school history. That meet was not scored.
Morehead State will take two and a half weeks off before rounding out the indoor season at the OVC Championships. It will be the teams' third straight meet at the Norton Center.
Last February, the men placed ninth and the women were 11th. At that meet, Singleton became the first Eagle to win an OVC individual crown since 2003, when she captured the title in the mile.
The indoor season officially ends on March 13-14 with the NCAA Championships. That competition will take place in Fayetteville, Ark.
The outdoor campaign will begin on Friday, Mar. 21 or Saturday, Mar. 22 at the Eastern Kentucky Springtime Invitational. It will be the Eagles' third straight trip to the competition.
Last spring, MSU had 19 top-10 finishes across nine of the 12 events it entered. Among collegiate teams, the Eagle men placed fourth, with the women in fifth.
From March 26-28, a handful of Morehead State runners will compete in the Raleigh Relays at North Carolina State University. The Eagles were last supposed to have participated in the 2020 version that was canceled due to the pandemic. In 2019, MSU entered three men in the 1,500-meter run, with Aaron Wier setting a school record in the race.
On Friday, Apr. 10 and Saturday, Apr. 11, MSU will make its first appearance at the Lee Fast Break Invitational in Cleveland, Tenn.
"Outdoor (season) will be fun. Raleigh Relays is probably just one or two people competing, and that is (only) if they qualify," Dixon said. "Other than that, the other meets will have pretty much everyone. Lee University has a good meet and it will be fun to travel somewhere we have not been to in the past."
The following weekend could be the return of the MSU Eagle Twilight. However, the second edition of the meet is currently off the schedule because of unfinished repairs to the track that are necessary if Morehead State is to host a competition. Last year's meet also served as Senior Day. Three team members, including current junior
Ginger Hayden, were double-event winners at that meet.
A two-day meet at the University of Louisville will take place on Friday, Apr. 24 and Saturday, Apr. 25. The competition has had many names over the years. This version is currently slated to be the Lenny Lyles Invitational, the same name as the school's indoor meet that will be held on the final two days of January.
Last year, the competition was a late replacement for a canceled meet at Eastern Kentucky. However, it was named the Jim Freeman/Clark Wood Invitational. It was unscored. Prior to last season, the Eagles previously competed there in 2022. Over the last 15 years, MSU has run at the meet eight times.
Senior
Kaylyn Holman highlighted the competitors there by placing 14th in the 1,500m with a performance that ranked in the top five all-time at MSU.
Morehead State's penultimate meet will be the Jim Green Invitational at the University of Kentucky on Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2. Last year's event was plagued with heavy rain, forcing the Eagles to cancel their 4x400-meter relay entries and head home.
It will be the 10th time since 2014 that the Eagles will compete at UK. The meet has been known as the Jim Green Invitational, the Kentucky Invitational and Kentucky Relays over that time.
Like most of MSU's meets, it is not expected to be scored.
The OVC Outdoor Championships will be held in Little Rock, Ark., for the first time. It will take place from Thursday, May 14 to Saturday, May 16. Morehead State had one of its best overall conference meet performances at the 2025 event. Despite the men placing ninth and the women 11th, the two teams combined to total 38 points and score in eight events. They also broke three school records, recorded at least nine top-five all-time performances and notched 17 "pr's" out of 35 entries.
The NCAA Championships will be June 10-13 in Eugene, Ore., with the East First Round in Lexington, Ky., and the West First Round in Fayetteville, Ark., from May 27-30.
