BATON ROUGE — LSU’s national champion track and field team had another strong weekend Saturday, posting seven first-place finishes at the LSU Alumni Gold at Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
“We were fortunate to have good weather today,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We had a lot of good things happen, and we had a lot of good performances again today.”
Lolo Jones, RaNysha LeBlanc and Brittany Littlejohn dominated in the 100-meter hurdles finishing 1-2-3. Jones won with a time of 12.97, while LeBlanc and Littlejohn ran 13.15 and 13.17.
In the 200-meter dash, Stephanie Durst and Hazelann Regis finished 1-2. Durst won her heat with a time of 22.96, while Regis also won her heat in 23.14.
Britney Henry won the women’s hammer throw with a mark of 200-6. Katie McKeever finished second in the women’s shot put with a distance of 50-4 1/2.
Monique Hall just came up short in the women’s 400-meter dash finishing second with a time of 51.93. Ruth Nanyinza also finished second running a time of 4:30.27 in the 1,500-meters to come within one-tenth of a second of the winner, Rowan Baird of Lamar.
For the Tigers, Sam Mwape and Jimmy Wiggins finished 1-2 in the 5,000-meter run. Mwape won with a time of 14:14.52, while Wiggins finished right behind him in 14:14.90. With those times, Mwape and Wiggins moved into eight and ninth, respectively, on LSU’s all-time performance list.
All-American Bennie Brazell won the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 49.99 keeping his undefeated streak alive in the event. He won the Gatorade Classic last week in Miami with a time of 49.19.
Pete Coley edged out Tunisian Sofanie Labidi by one-hundredth of a second to win the 400 meters in 45.62. Robert Parham, Siraj Williams, Marvin Stephenson and Austin Benton combined to win the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:08.97.
All-American John Moffitt beat his own collegiate best mark in the long jump, finishing first with a jump of 26-4 1/4. The mark, an outdoor personal best, ranks as the fourth-best all-time in school history.
Kelly Willie finished second in the men’s 200-meter dash with a time of 20.61, while Andrew Huston finished second in the 1,500 meters with a time of 3:55.16.
In the men’s decathlon, Kwami Roberts finished second with a score of 6,995. Megan Akre and Dianne Harrison finished 2-3 in the women’s heptathlon with totals of 4,984 and 4,967, respectively.
“We have to step it up next week, and hopefully what we did today will help us to step it up next week,” said coach Henry.
LSU track and field will be back in action next week, April 22-24, at the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Pa.