BATON ROUGE — The names and faces are quite different this season, as the LSU track and field program has experienced significant turnover. The results were strikingly similar, however.
The LSU track and field team looked sharp in their 2001 season opener Saturday afternoon despite using a limited roster. LSU finished third in both the men’s and women’s competitons at the SEC Quadrangular at the Carl Maddox Field House, but head coach Pat Henry got exactly what he wanted out of the meet.
“We did pretty much everything I wanted to do today and, really, everything we need to do,” said Henry. “We used a lot of new people today and we got some very impressive performances for our newcomers. Our returnees looked very sharp but we were still a little selective in our use of our athletes because this is only the first meet of the season.”
Alabama won the men’s competition followed by Auburn, while Auburn claimed the women’s title ahead of Alabama. Mississippi State finished fourth in both competitions.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers combined to win eight events on the afternoon, including an even balance of three by newcomers and three by returning All-Americans.
2000 Junior College 400-meter dash national champion Ronetta Smith looked sharp in her LSU debut, blowing away the field in the women’s quarter with a time of 55.12 seconds, an extremely fast time on LSU’s notoriously tight turns.
Freshman Lolo Jones led a 1-4 finish by the Lady Tigers in the women’s 60-meter hurdles finals, edging senior April Sams with a winning time of 8.48. Freshmen Tiffany Robinson and Zamyal Jackson finished third and fourth respectively.
Daniel Trosclair provided the other victory by and LSU newcomer on the afternoon, taking the men’s pole vault title with a clearance of 15-9.
With the graduation of 19-time All-American Peta-Gaye Dowdie, Henry knew he would have to have someone step up in the short sprints and senior All-American Sa’Donna Thornton did just that on Saturday, winning the women’s 60-meter title.
The 2000 60-meter dash All-American got out of the blocks well and separated from the field over the final 20 meters to claim a comfortable victory in an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 7.42.
Ten-time All-American Myra Combs got her senior season off to a solid start with a strong performance in the 200-meter dash, winning the event in a time of 24.35, just off the NCAA provisional standard.
Javier Nieto gave the Tigers’ throws corps a victory, claiming the title in the men’s weight throw with a toss of 60-6 3/4.
In what was billed as one of the premier events of the afternoon, Alabama’s Miguel Pate edged LSU’s Marcus Thomas in the long jump. Pate, a native of Louisiana, won the event with an NCAA automatic qualifying mark of 26-0 3/4, while Thomas finished second with a high provisional leap of 25-5 1/4. Pate later went on to win the triple jump as well.
In, perhaps, the most exciting event of the day, Auburn edged the Tigers in the mile relay to close of competition in a thrilling race that came down to 2000 NCAA 400-meter champion Avard Moncur of Auburn and Tiger newcomer Alleyne Francique, the Junior College national champion in the event.
Francique inherited the stick with a slight deficit and pulled even with Moncur with 150 meters to go before the NCAA champion pulled away over the final 50 meters. The relay set the tone for what could become one of the NCAA’s premier mile relay rivalries in 2001 as the two teams will see each other plenty and on much faster tracks in the future.
LSU remains at home next weekend, as they welcome more than 25 teams to the Carl Maddox Field House for the Purple Tiger, a meet annually attended by the premier schools in the state of Louisiana.