PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — The national champion LSU track and field team completed action Saturday at the 110th annul Penn Relays.
The Lady Tigers were dominant in winning their fourth straight Penn Relays’ 4×200 title. All-Americans Nadia Davy, Monique Hall, Stephanie Durst and Muna Lee combined to clock the second fastest time in meet history at 1:30.42.
“We had a great, great day for LSU track and field here at Philadelphia,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry.
Lolo Jones won the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.04, just edging out Andrea Bliss of Florida who finished in 13.14. RaNysha LeBlanc and Brittany Littlejohn finished fourth and six with times of 13.24 and 13.45.
All-American Daniel Trosclair recorded a win of his own, becoming just the second LSU athlete to ever win the pole vault at the Penn Relays, clearing 17-4 1/2.
The Tiger foursome of Kelly Willie, Marvin Stevenson, Pete Coley and Bennie Brazell were nearly victorious in the 4×100-meter relay. Brazell battled TCU’s Michael Frater down the final straightaway, but came up just short in 39.48 as the Horned Frog’s crossed the line in 39.45.
“We got beat in the exchanges today,” said Henry. “You have to be perfect in that race and we weren’t able to do that.”
Both the men’s and the women’s 4×400-meter relay teams came up short. Stevenson, Brazell, Willie and Coley combined to finish second with a time of 3:01.39, less than three tenths of a second. For the women, Neisha Bernard-Thomas, Monique Hall, Tanya Osbourne and Hazel Ann Regis combined to finish second with a time of 3:30.21, the seventh best time in school history.
In the women’s 4×800-meter relay, the Lady Tigers finished sixth overall with a time of 8:34.97. The performance was highlighted by an outstanding 2:00.00 anchor leg by senior All-American Neisha Bernard-Thomas. Bernard-Thomas’ 800-meter split time is the fastest in Penn Relays’ history and bettered the previous record of 2:01.3 set by Villanova’s Debbie Grant in 1987.
The LSU track and field team will take two weekends off before returning to action, May 13-16, at the SEC Championships in Oxford, Miss.