BATON ROUGE — LSU’s national champion track and field team recorded 18 NCAA regional qualifying marks and 11 individual event wins to wrap up a solid weekend of competition at the LSU Tiger Relays Saturday.
“I think our performances were what we needed on a night like this,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We experimented in certain situations like the 4×100 by switching up the order and it worked out well for us.”
The reigning national champion Tiger and Lady Tiger 4×100-meter teams picked up right where they left off in 2003, sweeping the men’s and women’s titles.
Lady Tigers Lolo Jones, Monique Hall, Tania Woods and Muna Lee cruised to an easy 44.63, while the Tiger foursome of Kelly Willie, Marvin Stevenson, Pete Coley and Bennie Brazell topped the field in 39.44.
The same Tiger foursome went on to win the 4×400-meter relay later in the evening, recording a time 3:04.78.
The Lady Tigers also won gold in the long relay as Nadia Davy, Keioike Lutcher, Monique Hall and Tanya Osbourne finished in 3:35.28.
Lolo Jones led the Lady Tigers to 1-3-4 finish in the 100-meter hurdle finals. The nine-time All-American clocked a season-best 13.21, while RaNysha LeBlanc and Brittany Littlejohn followed in 13.54 and 13.62.
In the 800 meters, senior Jeffrey Fisher and freshman Tanya Osbourne both turned in PRs to win the men’s and women’s titles. Fisher clocked 1:49.75, while Osbourne turned in a time of 2:08.25.
Other event winners on the track included Bennie Brazell in the 400-meter hurdles, Austin Benton in the 400 meters and Katie Denton in the 5,000. Brazell, running his first hurdles race of the season, clocked 50.65 and Benton topped the field with a PR of 47.02. Denton finished in 18:01.25.
In the field events, Katie McKeever turned in a season-best effort in the shot put, throwing 49-6 1/2 to also finish first.
The LSU track and field team will return to action next week when it travels to Austin, Texas, April 1-3, for the 77th annual Texas Relays.