Appalachian State hosts the championships for the 12th year and first time since 2007. The 445 men and women scheduled to compete this year is an all-time high for the conference.

The Mountaineers won the 2009 Outdoor Track & Field Championships and will be looking for their18th league championship. CofC is projected to finish sixth, according to the latest power rankings, one better than their seventh-place finish in 2009.

Sophomore high jumper Emily Smith (Rock Hill, S.C./Northwestern) returns as the reigning SoCon champion after clearing a height of 5'8¾" last year. She currently sits second in the conference standings with her season-best height of 5'7" from the Duke Invitational on Apr. 2-3.

The Cougars also have a strong competitor in freshman Jelain McArthur (Laurens, S.C./Laurens District) who currently leads the SoCon in the 100-meter hurdles. McArthur broke the school record three times and currently holds seven of the school's top 10 performances in history. Her personal-best time of 14.09 seconds gives her a nine-hundredths of a second lead on the rest of the competition in the conference.

Junior Mary Zolga (Raynham, Mass./Bridgewater-Raynham) will represent Charleston in the 400-meter hurdles where she has the potential to score high for her team. She broke her own school record this year with a time of 1:03.88 at the Duke Invitational and holds the fourth-fastest time in the league.

McArthur is also poised to score for CofC in the jumps where she holds school records in the long jump and the triple jump. Joining her will be junior Saskia Kalmeijer (Brussels, Belgium/Pope) who will also compete in the 400-meter hurdles.

Potential scorers for the Cougars in the middle-distance events include sophomore Kristen Wolfe (Midlothian, Va./James River). Wolfe could earn points for College of Charleston in the 800 and 1,500 meters as well as the steeplechase. She recorded a season-best times of 11:09.12 in the steeplechase and 4:43.42 in the 1,500 meters at Duke.

The Outdoor Track & Field Championships kicks off at 8 a.m. on Saturday at Kidd Brewer Stadium with the first women's event being the heptathlon 100-meter hurdles at 8:30 a.m. Juniors Isabel Boersma (Franklin, Tenn./Ravenwood) and Brynne Johnson (Centerville, Ohio/Centerville) both had strong performances in the pentathlon to earn points for the Cougars at the 2010 SoCon Indoor Championships and are set to continue their success into the outdoor season.

Other first-day events include the women's 10,000 meters, long jump, hammer, high jump, steeplechase and javelin.