BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field team had some strong performances as they tuned up for the SEC Championships Friday at the Twilight Invitational at the Carl Maddox Field house.
“This Friday night meet we have had for several years now, and as a result we have people not running their special events,” said LSU head track and field coach Dennis Shaver. “We have had everyone run in their special events the last two weeks; so now you have people working on things for SEC Indoors, and they are running at times close to their personal best. I think that is pretty good.”
RaNysha LeBlanc would win the 60-meter hurdles with a provisional time of 8.38. Jessica Ohanaja ran seasonal best time of 8.56 in the preliminaries. Kelly Ann Baptiste, Ashley Owens and Brooklyn Morris would finish 2-3-4 in the women’s 60-meter dash. Baptiste ran a time of 7.52, while Owens finished in 7.53 and Morris had a time of 7.62.
“I think RaNysha is ready to drop her time down,” said Shaver. “Jessica did a lot better and Kelly Ann Baptiste is getting consistent with her times.”
Kelly Willie and Xavier Carter finished 1-2 in the men’s 60-meter dash. In the men’s 60-meter hurdles Ryan Fontenot finished with a personal best time of 8.06.
Brittany Harris won the women’s 400-meters with a time of 56.90. Sade Nero would finish fourth in the 400-meters with a time of 57.37. In the men’s 400-meters Austin Benton would win with a time of 48.82.
Calah Young and Megan Duet combined to finish 1-2 in the women’s pole vault. Young vaulted 11-5 3/4, while Duet vaulted 10-8. Tina Harris finished second in the women’s triple jump as she jumped 40-4 1/4.
“Even though Tina didn’t do as well as she usually does, I think she is there,” said Shaver. “I was watching her jump and she was jumping pretty far.”
Michael Hendry won the men’s 800-meters with a time of 1:55.37. Megan Kliebert finished second in the women’s 800-meters with a time of 2:18.25.
Patrick Gavin won the men’s mile with a time of 4:11.17. Matt Vincent and John Chretien finished 1-2 in the men’s shot put. Vincent threw 55-2 while Chretien had a mark of 52-0. John Thompson jumped a personal best in the triple jump with a mark of 47-3 1/4, as former Tiger Walter Davis would win the triple jump with an outstanding mark of 57-9 3/4 on his first jump of the day.
The Tigers will be back in action next weekend as they will go on the road to Fayetteville, Ark. for the SEC Indoor Championships, Feb. 25-27.