BATON ROUGE — LSU long jumper John Moffitt set a school record and became and automatic NCAA qualifier Friday in the Bayou Bengal Invitational with a 26-11 leap.
Moffitt, a senior from Winnsboro, La., broke former Tiger Walter Davis’ record of 26-09 and was just a half-inch shy of the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse record set by Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis.
“That is probably the best jump in the world right now,” LSU head coach Pat Henry said. “I don’t know of one that’s better. It showed a tremendous effort.”
Muna Lee also became an automatic qualifier in the 60-meter dash, running a 7.29. Lee, the defending national champion of the 60-meter dash, holds the school record of 7.15.
RaNysha Leblanc and Britney Littlejohn placed first and second in the 60-meter hurdles, with times of 8.29 and 8.30, respectively. Both times meet the provisional standard for the NCAA meet.
“Those are the highlights so far today and anytime that happens you’ve had a good meet,” Henry said. “Besides the qualifiers, we had a lot of people who got better today.”
LSU athletes also won several other events, including sweeping the men’s short sprints. Gerald Taylor won the men’s 60-meter dash with a 6.86 and All-American Robert Parham won the 200-meter dash with a 21.80.
LSU’s Tamia Woods was second behind Lee in the 60 with a 7.48 and teammate Nadia Davy was third. The women’s distance medley of Katie Denton, Tanya Osbourne, Michelle Hymel and Brittany Harris also placed first.
In field events, Mallory McDonald won the weight throw with a 62-00.25 and Britney Henry was second with a 58-08.50. Nicole Toney and Ayanna Alexander were first and second in the triple jump with a 19-07 and 19-02.
LSU’s Matt Vincent was first in the men’s weight throw with a 16-01 and Brad Sowa turned in a 15-53 for second.
Next week the track teams leave home for the first time in two weeks to compete in the United Heritage Invitational in Boise, Idaho.
Click Here! for the results from the meet.