NCAA Women's Indoor track & field preview...

Courtesy of ncaa.com, columnist Brett Hess writes about the upcoming NCAA indoor track & field season, and how he thinks the undercover season, which climaxes in College Station, Texas on March 13-14th, will pan out.

Even with the loss of Olympian Jacqueline Johnson, the Arizona State Sun Devils appear on paper to be the favorites to win a third NCAA title, led by thrower Sarah Stevens.

LSU, Texas, Texas A&M, and a darkhorse in MPSF/Pac-10 rival Washington are the teams Hess feels have a shot at upending the Sun Devils.

"Up in the Pacific Northwest, Washington is hot off the most dominant women's collegiate cross country season of all-time. On an off-day the Huskies easily won the NCAA Championships; on a great day, they went 1-thru-6 to win the PAC-10 Championship, a meet that included several ranked teams, such as No. 2 Oregon.

If anything, the cross country season proved that the Washington women can run -- and excel at -- distances other than 1,500 meters. It might have been tough to feel any other way last track season, when four Washington athletes competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 1,500 and two others competed in the same event at the Canadian Olympic Trials.

Most are back, including Katie Follett (sixth in the mile at last year's NCAA Indoors). Others in this incredibly deep team, which will likely be asked to run in the 3,000 or 5,000 or distance medley relay include Mel Lawrence, Anita Campbell and Lauren Saylor, along with freshmen Kendra Schaaf and Christine Babcock. If this impressive array of talent can further display its versatility, who knows how many points the Huskies can score."

The Sun Devils and Huskies will see each other at least twice, and possibly three times this winter before the NCAAs--at the Washington Invitational on January 30-31st; the Husky Classic on Valentine's Day; and, the MPSF Championships on February 27-28th.

To read Hess' preview, click here...