BATON ROUGE — The first day of competition at the LSU Combined Events is in the books and Mississippi State sophomore LaQuinta Aaron is this year’s pentathlon champion after scoring 3,444 points in the event Thursday at the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse.
After trailing Juzil Rudolph of Troy by 157 points heading into the final event of the evening, Aaron clinched the title with a third-place finish in the 800 meters while Rudolph placed ninth.
Aaron won two events en route to her victory as she took top honors in both the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.80 seconds and the long jump with a top mark of 18 feet, 7 ? inches. She also finished second in the shot put (36-4 ?) and eighth in the high jump (4-8 ?) to edge Rudolph by a mere 26 points for the pentathlon title.
Leonard McLeggon of Southern Mississippi finished the first day of competition atop the standings in the men’s heptathlon after wracking up 2,899 points in four events. McLeggon won the high jump after clearing 6-5, while he finished second in the shot put with a throw of 42-10 ?.
Freshman Chris Bujol, who is LSU’s lone competitor in the LSU Combined Events, scored 2,562 points in the heptathlon to finish the day in seventh place. He opened with a runner-up finish in the 60-meter dash after crossing the finish line in 7.24.
Bujol also finished fourth in the high jump with a clearance of 6-1 ?, eighth in the shot put with a throw of 34-4 ? and 10th in the long jump with a mark of 19-3 ?.
The LSU Combined Events continues Friday with the conclusion of the men’s heptathlon competition as three events are scheduled beginning with the 60-meter hurdles at 1 p.m. The Bayou Bengal Invitational is also scheduled for Friday and gets underway at 3 p.m. with the field events followed by the first events on the track at 6 p.m.