THOMASVILLE — Nick Dodson has his eyes set on a 400m hurdles title.

In his final tuneup before the NAIA Championships on May 21-23, the Shorter College sophomore will take a pit stop in Tallahassee this weekend where he’ll compete in the Seminole Twilight.

Dodson, who recently defended his Mid-South Conference title, is excited about competing against some of the nation’s best on the Divison I-A level.

“I’ve already pretty much seen some of the teams that are going to be there,” said Dodson, whose competition begins on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Mike Long Track at Florida State University. “There’s going to be some pretty good schools there. Florida State, they’ve won a national title the last two years so they’re going to have a lot of good teams come to their meet.”

Dodson’s already excelled against Division I-A competition. He recently competed at a meet at Ole Miss and finished fourth.

“The only kids I lost to were two guys from Ole Miss and one kid was from Mississippi State,” Dodson said. “I wasn’t complaining about that.”

Dodson is ranked in the top three in the 400m hurdles in the country and wants to continue to lower his time before the NAIA meet in a little more than two weeks.

“I’m trying to get to that top spot so I can have a good lane assignment at nationals,” Dodson said.

“I want to go into nationals in the preliminaries with a lot of confidence,” Dodson added. “I defended my conference title two weeks ago up at Kentucky. I’ve been back-to-back the last two years. Going into this meet, as conference champion, I want to go into the 51 (seconds) range this week. Hopefully, I can go 51.5 or even better. My goal for this season is to go 49, which I think I’ll hit at the nationals.”

The former Thomas County Central standout finished runner-up last year in the 400m hurdles. According to Dodson, surpassing that performance is not out of the question.

“I feel real good right now. My legs feel real good,” Dodson said. “I’m ahead of schedule than where I was last year, if you look at my times and my performances. I came in first earlier this year in Charlotte. I won the preliminary and the final. I took third down in Alabama. Then I came back to Tennessee and took first at a big, huge SEC meet at the University of Tennessee.

“I’m way ahead than where I was last year. I’ve got more first-place finishes.

“My times have been very consistent and I’ve been staying within the same range every meet.”