BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field teams continue to dominate the rankings as the Lady Tigers strengthen their grip on the No. 1 spot and the Tigers vault into the Top 10 following a pair of outstanding performances at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational.
The Lady Tigers have held the top spot in the rankings for four straight weeks, while the Tigers move up four spots to No. 8 in the latest power ranking released by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Wednesday.
The squads enjoyed a record-setting weekend at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in New York as they combined for three new automatic qualifiers and five new provisional qualifiers for the NCAA Indoor Championships in March.
The Lady Tigers added the likes of senior Kelly Baptiste and sophomore LaTavia Thomas to their postseason roster as the duo set a pair of meet records in qualifying for the national meet.
Baptiste was named the Female Athlete of the Meet after clocking the nation’s fastest 60-meter time this season at 7.17 seconds in qualifying automatically for the NCAA Championships for the first time this season. Thomas also recorded the nation’s fastest time in the 800-meter run with a new personal best effort of 2 minutes, 4.66 seconds.
Senior hurdler Jessica Ohanaja set a meet record of her own in winning the event title in the 60-meter hurdles as she improved her NCAA automatic qualifying time with a mark of 8.12.
Sophomore sprinter Trindon Holliday became the second Tiger this season to punch his ticket to the NCAA Championships after finishing runner-up in the 60-meter dash with a new personal best and an automatic qualifying time of 6.61.
LSU is well ahead of last year’s pace as they have already combined for nine automatic qualifiers and 17 provisional qualifiers to the NCAA meet through nearly one month of the indoor season. The squads combined for only two automatic qualifiers and 18 provisional qualifiers through four indoor meets in 2007.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers will be back in action this weekend as they travel to the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark., for the second time this season to compete in the Tyson Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
USTFCCCA Top 25
WOMEN
1. LSU, 206.40
2. Tennessee, 132.07
3. Michigan, 130.18
4. Texas A&M, 128.42
5. Stanford, 123.19
6. Arizona State, 121.00
7. Arkansas, 96.08
8. Minnesota, 86.56
9. Virginia Tech, 86.06
10. Penn State, 73.08
11. Oregon, 65.28
12. Baylor, 63.01
13. Florida, 52.06
14. Ole Miss, 51.53
15. Florida State, 50.93
16. Arizona, 49.82
17. Miami, Fla., 47.74
18. Kansas, 45.16
19. Southern Illinois, 45.09
20. South Carolina, 43.88
21. Kentucky, 42.55
22. Georgia Tech, 38.25
23. Nebraska, 36.83
24. Kansas State, 36.60
25. Iowa, 34.35
MEN
1. Tennessee, 105.32
2. Arizona State, 99.50
3. Texas A&M, 76.75
4. Oklahoma, 76.10
5. BYU, 75.02
6. Boise State, 73.62
7. Florida, 70.73
8. LSU, 68.29
9. Northern Iowa, 67.40
10. Kentucky, 64.46
11. Arkansas, 63.83
12. Oregon, 63.78
13. Texas, 60.88
14. Clemson, 59.39
15. UCLA, 58.81
16. Texas Tech, 57.95
17. Nebraska, 57.06
18. Florida State, 53.43
19. Georgetown, 47.92
20. Auburn, 47.47
21. Baylor, 46.18
22. Kansas, 45.15
23. Liberty, 42.65
24. Princeton, 42.15
25. Michigan, 40.94