BATON ROUGE — Following outstanding efforts at last week’s Penn Relays senior Kelly Willie was named the SEC Men’s Runner of the Week and sophomore Kelly Baptiste earned Women’s Runner of the Week honors it was announced Tuesday by the conference office.
The accolades mark the 10th and 11th for LSU this season, as well as the third for Willie and the second for Baptiste to date.
Willie, a native of Houston, was named the College Men’s Athlete of the Meet for Relay Events after anchoring the Tigers to victory in the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400-meter relays.
With the three victories LSU became just the fifth program in the 112-year history of the relay carnival to sweep the men’s sprint relay titles.
Baptiste, a native of Plymouth, Scarborough, Trinidad, was named the College Women’s Athlete of the Meet for Individual Events after winning the 100-meter dash with a personal best time of 11.10 seconds.
The time, the second fastest in the NCAA this season, ranks as the seventh fastest in school history and also tied her with former Miami standout and current 100-meter world champion, Lauryn Williams, for the meet record in the event.
In addition, Baptiste ran legs on both the Lady Tigers’ 4×200 and 4×100-meter relay teams that finished first and second, respectively.
The LSU track and field team returns to action next week, May 11-14, at the SEC Championships in Fayetteville, Ark.