BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field teams strengthened their postseason squads on the final day of the LSU Tiger Relays as they added seven NCAA regional qualifiers while capturing nine event titles on Saturday at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
In all, the Tigers and Lady Tigers combined to add 17 new qualifiers on the weekend to their respective teams that will compete at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships in Columbia, Mo., from May 25-26.
“It was a great first weekend for both the men and the women,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “The biggest thing for a meet like this is that you want to come out of it feeling good about the way you competed as a team. This is a mature group, and they prepared themselves well coming in and competed like championship teams are supposed to.”
Freshman pole vaulter Josh Dominguez kicked off the final day of competition for the Tigers with a bang as he cleared a new overall personal best height of 17 feet, ? inches to punch his ticket to the regional meet in his outdoor collegiate debut.
The Ponchatoula, La., native became the first Tiger to clear a height of 17 feet in the event since former LSU standout Daniel Trosclair vaulted 17-4 ? during the outdoor season in 2004. Dominguez finished runner-up in the event behind former LSU national champion Russ Buller, who set a new facility record at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium with a mark of 18-9 ?.
The teams followed Dominguez’s efforts by sweeping titles in both hurdles events as junior Jessica Ohanaja claimed top honors in the women’s 100-meter hurdles with an improved regional qualifying time of 13.22 seconds, while senior Alleyne Lett finished first in the men’s 110-meter hurdles with an improved regional mark of 13.77 in his final heat.
The Lady Tigers continue to feature one of the nation’s premier hurdles squads as sophomore Nickiesha Wilson finished second and junior Angel Boyd took third in the event with improved qualifying times of their own at 13.32 and 13.46, respectively, in Saturday’s final.
“It can be a difficult transition in the hurdles when you move from the indoor season to the outdoor season,” Shaver said. “It’s a lot different when you have to clear 10 hurdles in a race as opposed to five when you’re indoors. Our hurdlers performed very well this weekend, and this was probably the best our groups ran in their first outdoor meet in quite a long time.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers also doubled in the 100-meter dash as junior All-Americans Richard Thompson and Kelly Baptiste won gold medals in the event for both the men and the women. Thompson crossed the finish with a time of 10.31 after clocking a 10.47 in the preliminary round, while Baptiste also improved her prelim time of 11.39 with an 11.22 on Saturday.
Senior Sherry Fletcher finished a split-second behind Baptiste in third place with an improved regional qualifying time of 11.45. Sophomore Monique Cabral was the only Lady Tiger to post her first qualifying time in the 100-meter finals after finishing sixth with a time of 11.71.
The Tigers also displayed their potential in the field events with outstanding performances from freshman Preston Chatham and senior Brandon Racca in the javelin, as well as freshman jumps standout Reggie Haslom in the triple jump.
Chatham improved exactly seven feet on his regional qualifying throw at the Louisiana Classics a week ago as he posted a new personal best mark of 224-8, which moves him into the sixth spot on the school’s all-time outdoor performance list in front of teammate and fellow regional qualifier Chad Radgowski who now ranks seventh.
Racca qualified for the regional meet for the first time this season in his second appearance of the outdoor campaign with a seasonal best throw of 210-1, while Haslom used a slight wind at his back to post his first career regional qualifying mark with a leap of 50-11 ? in his specialty.
In addition to its many outstanding individual performances on the weekend, LSU also saw three of its relay teams secure their spot in the NCAA Mideast Regional by claiming three more event titles on the second and final day of the meet.
The Tiger foursome of Marvin Stevenson, Will Coppage, Thompson and Armanti Hayes carried the baton around the track in a time of 40.60 to qualify the men’s 4×100-meter relay team into the regional meet, while the 1,600-meter relay squad of Hayes, Isa Phillips, Melville Rogers and Siraj Williams also qualified after crossing the finish line in 3 minutes, 7.43 seconds.
The Lady Tigers are well on their way to defending their national championship in the 4×400-meter relay from a season ago as the foursome of Deonna Lawrence, Brooklynn Morris, Cynetheia Rooks and Nickiesha Wilson bettered the regional standard by nearly eight seconds after clocking an impressive time of 3:34.06 in their season debut.
The squads stayed true to the theme of the meet as they combined to win a total of eight relay titles on the weekend, including both collegiate sprint medley relays on Friday, as well as the men’s and women’s 4×200 and men’s distance medley relay on Saturday.
“This meet was the perfect opportunity for us to get something done in each of our relays,” Shaver said. “We were able to work on exchanges and see what our marks should be and things like that, and that’ll help us as we prepare for meets like the Texas Relays and the Penn Relays in the next few weeks.”
LSU’s multi-event athletes will have their first chance to compete during the outdoor season next weekend as they host the LSU Combined Events at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium on Thursday and Friday, while the teams will come together once again to host the Tiger Classic on March 31.