BATON ROUGE — LSU picked up a pair of SEC honors Wednesday as senior Kelly Willie was named the SEC Men’s Runner of the Week and sophomore Kelly Baptiste earned Women’s Runner of the Week accolades following exceptional performances at last week’s Texas Relays.
The honor marks the second of the season for Willie as he was also recognized during the week of March 30. The recognition is the first for Baptiste this season.
Willie, a senior from Houston, turned in a trio of gold medal-winning performances at the Texas Relays. The 16-time All-American won the 100-meters title in blazing 10.18 speed, a time that ranks as the second fastest in the nation, and the best in the SEC, this season. In addition, Willie ran legs on both the 4×100 and 4×400-meter relay teams that posted first-place finishes with NCAA-leading times of 38.97 and 3:02.01, respectively.
Baptiste, a native of Plymouth, Scarborough, Trinidad, was also impressive on the track, finishing second in the 100 meters by just .01 seconds after clocking a personal-best time of 11.14. The time, the fastest in the SEC this season, also ranks as the second fastest in the NCAA to date.
In relay action, Baptiste anchored the Lady Tigers’ 4×200 relay team to a first-place finish as the foursome tied their season best of 1:32.70. In addition, Baptiste helped both the 4×100 and sprint medley relay teams to a pair of runner up finishes as the short relay clocked the second fastest time in the nation this season, 43.38, and the sprint medley posted the seventh-fastest time in Lady Tiger history, 3:46.79.
Both the Tigers and Lady Tigers track and field teams return to action this Saturday at the Miami Elite Invitational in Coral Gables, Fla.