AUSTIN, Texas — LSU’s track and field team shined in front of a capacity crowd of 22,000 Saturday on the final day of the 77th-annual Texas Relays at Mike A. Myers Stadium. Muna Lee headlined Lady Tiger action, turning in outstanding performances in the 100-meter dash and 4×100 and 4×200-meter relays.
In the 100 meters, Lee beat out Baylor’s Lakadron Ivery by three one-hundredths of a second, clocking 11.31, to win her second straight meet title in the event.
“This is early in the year and we have done some good things in this meet. We will use this meet to take the next step,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry.
LSU won both the men’s and women’s 4×100-meter relays. Lady Tigers Lolo Jones, Monique Hall, Nadia Davy and Muna Lee combined to win their second straight, and ninth overall, Texas Relays title in the event, defeating runner-up Baylor by nearly a full second (43.34).
The Tiger foursome of Kelly Willie, Marvin Stevenson, Pete Coley and Bennie Brazell were just three one-hundredths of a second off meet record pace in winning the short relay. They clocked 38.93 to edge out TCU and win their fourth Texas Relays title in the event.
“This is the first time we’ve won the 4×100 (here) since I’ve been at LSU,” said Brazell. “I knew it didn’t matter what position we were in when I got the baton; I was going to do my best to help my team win the race. We’ve been working very hard to prepare for this meet and I was thrilled that we came out with the victory.”
The women’s 4×200-meter relay team won its fifth meet title in a row beating Miami (Fla.) by three seconds with a time of 1:30.42. Hazelann Regis, Monique Hall, Nadia Davy and Muna Lee were just short of the meet record mark of 1:30.07 set by the Lady Tigers a year ago.
“Nadia Davy stepped up this week on both relays and did a good job for us all the way around. She was significant today, and it is good to see a young lady who hasn’t run on either of these relays step up and be successful,” said Henry.
Lolo Jones came up just short of beating out Nichole Denby of Texas in the 100-meter hurdles. She lost by four one-thousandths of a second, despite clocking a personal record 12.78.
Davy and Hall teamed up with Neisha Bernard-Thomas and Hazelann Regis to finish second in the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:29.64. They finished three seconds behind Texas who won the event for the sixth year in a row.
“We got beat by a great team. Texas had a collegiate record by two and a half seconds. We learned some things today, and we are going to try to be at our best by the end of the year,” said Henry.
In the field events, John Moffitt and Willie Bradley finished 3-4 in the men’s triple jump. Moffitt jumped 54-9 1/4 and Bradley jumped 54-6, while LeJuan Simon finished sixth with a distance of 53-8 1/4.
Nicole Toney finished fifth in the women’s triple jump with a mark of 43-10, while Daniel Trosclair finished eighth in the men’s pole vault, clearing 17-4 1/2.
The LSU track and field team returns to action next weekend when they travel to Miami, Fla., to compete in the Gatorade Invitational, April 10.