LEXINGTON, Ky. — LSU’s men’s and women’s track and field teams combined to win seven individual event titles Sunday as the Lady Tigers placed third and the men finished tied for fourth at the SEC Indoor Championships.
Behind a 75 point explosion on the final day of competition, the Lady Tigers jumped six spots in the team standings to finish with 84.5 points. Florida won the women’s title with 105.5 points and Tennessee followed in second with 99.5 points.
The Gators completed the sweep of team gold, dethroning seven-time defending champion, Arkansas, with 128 points to the Razorbacks’ 126 points. Auburn finished third with 83 points and the Tigers and Georgia followed in fourth with 71 points each.
“Of course we come to the SEC Championships wanting to win,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “But at the same time there are certain times of the year when you want to do certain things. It’s only February. We were careful about what we did here and did what we felt was right for our athletes at this point of the season.
“That considered, we did some really great things this weekend and I couldn’t be any more pleased with the results.”
LSU was hard to beat on the track Sunday as the men and women combined to win six sprint and relay events.
Hazelann Regis stole the show in the quartermile, clocking the second-best 400 meter time in collegiate history (51.13) to win her second straight SEC title in the event. She was just .08 second off the collegiate record mark of 51.05 set in 1991.
The St. Andrews, Grenada, native later teamed with Neisha Bernard-Thomas, Monique Hall and Nadia Davy to shatter the school record in the 4×400-meter relay. The foursome clocked an astonishing 3:29.42 en route to claiming LSU’s first indoor conference title in the event since the 1999 season.
The Lady Tigers bettered the previous school record mark of 3:32.06 set in 1999 and established new Nutter Fieldhouse and SEC Championships records in the process.
The men’s 4×400-meter relay team of Bennie Brazell, Pete Coley, Siraj Williams and Kelly Willie completed LSU’s sweep of relay gold as the foursome clocked a season-best 3:06.79.
The Tigers were initially edged by Florida at finish line, but were later awarded first-place honors after the Gators were disqualified for causing Arkansas to fall and not complete the race during the first leg.
For sophomore Kelly Willie it was his second gold-medal winning performance of the day as the Houston native clocked 46.12 in the open quarter to garner first-place honors.
Senior Lolo Jones etched her name in the SEC record books becoming the first woman in conference history to ever win three straight hurdle titles. Jones topped the competition in the 60 hurdle finals with a season-best and SEC Championships record time of 8.08.
Fellow senior Muna Lee won her second conference title in the 60-meter dash. She also set a SEC Championship record with her season-best mark of 7.17.
Overcoming tremendous adversity senior Daniel Trosclair became just the second athlete in LSU history to win back-to-back titles in the men’s pole vault.
Competition in the event, which was originally scheduled for Saturday, was delayed until Sunday when a problem with the shipping of LSU’s poles to the competition site wasn’t going to get the poles to Lexington until late Saturday evening.
When the poles finally arrived, it was discovered that the wrong set of poles had been delivered to Lexington and the Tigers were still without their own equipment. Trosclair then borrowed a pole from South Carolina where he went on to clear 17-5 ? to successfully defend his SEC title in the event.
“To win with somebody else’s pole is incredible,” said Henry. “That just doesn’t happen, people don’t do that.”
Outside the conference titles, LSU also had four athletes earn All-SEC honors, recording second-place finishes in their respective events.
Muna Lee missed out on a fourth straight SEC title in the 200 meters. She clocked a season-best 22.97 in the finals, but was outrun by Arkansas’ Veronica Campbell who finished first in 22.67.
Senior Neisha Bernard-Thomas came up just short in the 800 meters despite clocking her second-best time of the season (2:05.54).
Nicole Toney turned in her best performance of the year in the triple jump (44-2 3/4), but was edged by Auburn’s Shelly-Ann Gallimore, who recorded a top distance of 44-4.
A day after earning runner-up honors in the long jump, senior John Moffitt returned to lead the Tigers to a 2-3-4 finish in the triple jump. Moffitt’s leap of 53-2 3/4 finished just ahead of junior Willie Bradley’s 53-1 3/4. Senior LeJuan Simon finished fourth, jumping 52-6.
The LSU track and field team will return to action, March 12-13, when it travels to Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA Indoor Championships at Arkansas’ Randal Tyson Track Center.
FINAL TEAM STANDINGS
MEN
1. Florida 128
2. Arkansas 126
3. Auburn 83
4. LSU 71
4. Georgia 71
6. Tennessee 60
7. USC 39
8. Kentucky 32
9. Alabama 31
10. Ole Miss 16
WOMEN
1. Florida 105.5
2. Tennessee 99.5
3. LSU 84.5
4. Georgia 81
5. USC 72
6. Arkansas 50.5
7. Auburn 48
8. Kentucky 42
9. Vanderbilt 25
10. Alabama 25
11. Miss. State 21
12. Ole Miss 9