BATON ROUGE – After wrapping up the regular season by playing host to the LSU Twilight on Friday night, the Lady Tigers have moved up one spot to No. 2 and the Tigers have remained firm at No. 4 in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Top 25 power rankings.   

The teams are ready to kick off the championship season this weekend as they compete in an always deep field at the 2012 Southeastern Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Nutter Field House in Lexington, Ky.

The Lady Tigers will look to defend their SEC Indoor crown against a field that features four other ranked teams, including No. 4 Arkansas, No. 6 Florida, No. 8 Tennessee and No. 22 South Carolina.

The Lady Tigers claimed their league-leading 12th SEC Indoor team title all-time a season ago by the total of 135-118 over homestanding Arkansas at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.

If the Tigers hope to improve upon a third-place finish at the SEC Indoor Championships a year ago, they will do so against one of the strongest fields in recent history as the conference features six teams that will compete this weekend. The Tigers are joined in the latest men's power rankings by No. 1 Arkansas, No. 2 Florida, No. 17 Auburn, No. 22 Ole Miss and No. 24 Georgia.

The Lady Tigers jumped Clemson for the No. 2 spot in this week's women's power rankings thanks to the performance of sophomore Denise Hinton in claiming the women's 20-pound weight throw Friday during the LSU Twilight meet with her sixth personal best in as many meets this season.

Hinton shattered her own school record in the event with a seasonal-best mark of 68 feet, 3 ¼ inches for a No. 8 national ranking while taking one step closer to qualification for the NCAA Championships.