PHILADELPHIA ? The top-ranked LSU women’s track and field team stole the show on the second day of the 113th-annual Penn Relays by winning a pair of “Championship of America” relay titles in impressive fashion on Friday at Franklin Field.
The Lady Tiger foursome of Sherry Fletcher, Samantha Henry, Brooklynn Morris and Kelly Baptiste kicked things off by taking home the 4×100-meter relay title with the meet’s top time at 43.66 in the final heat.
The team lined up following a two-hour weather delay and held off a hard-charging South Carolina squad on the last leg as the Gamecocks earned a runner-up finish with a time of 43.80. Baptiste beat South Carolina’s All-American sprinter Shalonda Solomon to the tape to give the Lady Tigers the victory.
This marks the first year since 2004 that LSU has won the women’s 4×100-meter relay title at the Penn Relays as the Lady Tigers have now won the Championship of America title in the event a total of 11 times. Texas and Morgan State are tied with the second most titles at three apiece.
“The women did a great job today after not winning the sprint relay the last two years,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “They were very aggressive and took charge of the race from the very start. Sherry ran a great lead leg and got the other teams to press a little bit to try and catch up. All I can say is that I was very pleased with their performance.”
The nation’s No. 1-ranked squad continued its momentum through the evening as it won its second Championship of America title of the day by taking top honors in the sprint medley relay for the third time in program history.
Lady Tiger freshman and Philadelphia native LaTavia Thomas anchored the relay on the 800-meter leg as she teamed with Cynetheia Rooks, Henry and Deonna Lawrence to clock the eighth-fastest time in school history with a winning effort of 3 minutes, 47.09 seconds.
“The girls ran a really smart race in the sprint medley,” Shaver said. “The exchanges were good, and LaTavia ran a very smart anchor leg for us. She sat on the hip of the girl in front of her until the very end when she kicked it into gear the last 100 meters. It’s great to see her return to her home city and win a championship like this.”
The men’s sprint medley relay team ended the day for LSU as Marvin Stevenson, Richard Thompson, Isa Phillips and Jamaal James also ran a Top 10 time in school history as they took third place after carrying the stick around the track with the fifth-fastest time ever at 3:17.83.
The Gamecocks returned the favor later in the afternoon by winning the women’s shuttle hurdle relay title by the narrowest of margins over the Lady Tigers with a time of 53.54.
LSU’s foursome of Nickiesha Wilson, Shaunette Davidson, Angel Boyd and Jessica Ohanaja were unable to defend their title from a year ago as they finished runner-up with a time of 53.73, which is the ninth-fastest time ever recorded at the Penn Relays.
LSU will have the chance to win five more Championship of America relay titles on the final day of the competition as the women’s 4×400 relay will be joined by the team’s 4×200 squad, while the Tigers will look to defend their titles in the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 after advancing all three squads to Saturday’s action.
The women’s 4×200 (1:33.04) and men’s 4×400 (3:07.56) each qualified with the No. 1 and No. 2 preliminary times, while the men’s 4×100 (40.09) and 4×200 (1:23.23) each advanced to the final day with the third-fastest time in the preliminary round of their respective events.
“That’s all you try to do at a meet like this is advance,” Shaver said. “I thought all of our athletes did an excellent job of preparing themselves and get in a position to advance. The last day is always an exciting day at the Penn Relays, and we’ve got a great chance to come back tomorrow and compete in front of 50,000 people.”
In addition to her effort on LSU’s shuttle hurdle relay, Davidson enjoyed a career day in the field as she cleared a height of 5 feet, 10 ? inches in the high jump for the best mark of her Lady Tiger career. She improves her NCAA regional qualifying mark in the event as she is also now tied for seventh place in Lady Tiger history.
Will Coppage also pulled double duty for the Tigers as he followed his performance on the men’s 4×100 relay with a runner-up finish in the championship division of the long jump with a leap of 24-3 ? in his first career appearance at the Penn Relays.
The squads combined for four top-five finishes in the field events as long jumper Jeremy Hicks followed Coppage in fourth place with a mark of 24-0 ?, while Andrea Linton took fifth place in the championship division of the women’s triple jump with a leap of 41-5 ? and Kathy Coleman took fourth in the college section with a mark of 40-2.
“You’ve got to hand it to our jumpers for doing what they did in these conditions,” Shaver said. “I thought that was phenomenal for Shaunette to do what she did while also preparing to run the shuttle hurdle relay. I’m also proud of both Will and Jeremy for finishing where they did despite jumping in this kind of environment.”
Wilson continues to show why she is one of the nation’s premier hurdlers in just her first season with the Lady Tigers as she qualified for Saturday’s final in the 100 hurdles with a new personal best and the meet’s fastest preliminary time at 13.06.
The Jamaican, who is also the nation’s top-ranked 400-meter hurdler with a world-leading time of 55.87, now sits in the fifth position on the NCAA list in the 100 hurdles and moves into the No. 10 spot on the school’s all-time list in the event with her impressive effort.
She will be joined in the final by teammate and fellow All-American Jessica Ohanaja, who was just a split-second behind Wilson in the first preliminary heat with a new seasonal best time of her own at 13.13. Ohanaja tied for the second-fastest prelim time on Friday along with Georgia Tech standout Shantia Moss.
Baptiste will have the opportunity to defend her Penn Relays title in the 100-meter dash as she qualified for Saturday’s final with a time of 11.55. The Trinidadian became the first Lady Tiger to be named the meet’s College Women’s Athlete of the Meet with her performance a year ago.
Fletcher will give the Lady Tigers a solid 1-2 punch in the finals of the 100-meter dash as she shattered her previous personal best in the event after stopping the clock in 11.27 to give her the No. 2 seed on Saturday. Thompson is the Tigers’ lone qualifier on the men’s side as he won his preliminary heat in 10.49.
“We had some outstanding individual performances today on the track,” Shaver said. “I thought both Sherry and Richard ran really well for us, and I was really happy with the way Nickiesha and Jessica responded after the disappointment in the shuttle hurdle relay.”
The 113th-annual relay carnival will conclude on Saturday with eight collegiate Championship of America relay titles on the line. The Tigers will kick things off in the field for LSU as the men’s javelin competition is slated to get underway at 10 a.m. CDT. The final of the men’s 4×100 relay is scheduled to follow at 12:55 p.m.