BATON ROUGE – As members of the LSU track and field program gathered for its first team breakfast in Des Moines as it prepares for the start of the NCAA Championships on Wednesday, head coach Dennis Shaver and junior hurdler Barrett Nugent learned of their selection as regional award winners for the 2011 outdoor season by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Shaver was named the South Central Region Women’s Head Coach of the Year while Nugent was picked as the South Central Region Men’s Track Athlete of the Year for the 2011 outdoor campaign.
Shaver was recently voted the Southeastern Conference Women’s Outdoor Coach of the Year for a fourth time in five seasons after leading the Lady Tigers to the team title at the 2011 SEC Outdoor Track & Field Championships. The LSU women scored a 30-point victory over Florida by a 146-116 margin to win their fourth team championship in five seasons with wins in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011.
As the team’s sprints and hurdles coach, Shaver coached three Lady Tigers to SEC event titles during this year’s SEC Outdoor Championships, including junior Semoy Hackett in the 100 meters, sophomore Kimberlyn Duncan in the 200 meters and freshman Jasmin Stowers in the 100-meter hurdles. Duncan and Hackett also ran on LSU’s SEC champion 4×100-meter relay team at Georgia’s Spec Towns Track. In all, LSU’s sprinters and hurdlers accounted for nine All-SEC awards during the conference meet.
In addition, Hackett was presented with this year’s SEC Commissioner’s Trophy as the top point scorer at the SEC Championships on the women’s side. She added her SEC runner-up finish in the 200 meters with wins in the 100 meters and 4×100-meter relay to score 20.5 points for the meet.
With the win, the Lady Tigers completed their first season sweep of SEC titles since 2008. They also took home the SEC Indoor crown with their victory at the 2011 SEC Indoor Championships in March.
In fact, Shaver has completed a sweep of his own, while picking up SEC Women’s Coach of the Year and USTFCCCA South Central Region Head Coach of the Year awards for the indoor and outdoor seasons.
The Lady Tigers will take a No. 3 national ranking into the semifinal and final rounds of the 2011 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships being held this week in Des Moines as they advanced a total of 15 entries into the national semifinals for the third-most among women’s teams in the event. They featured 31 qualifiers into the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds held last weekend in Bloomington, Ind.
Nugent, this year’s USTFCCCA South Central Region Men’s Track Athlete of the Year, has continued in his development as one of the elite hurdlers at the collegiate level with his performance in 2011.
He recently made history at the SEC Championships by becoming the first LSU Tiger in history to secure back-to-back SEC Outdoor titles in the 110-meter hurdles with his victories in 2010 and 2011. Nugent ran a wind-aided time of 13.61 seconds to capture this year’s SEC Outdoor crown in the event.
He enters this weekend’s semifinal round at the NCAA Outdoor Championships with the No. 1 ranking in the event for the 2011 season after running a seasonal-best wind-aided time of 13.19 for the Texas Relays championship. That performance makes Nugent the No. 2-ranked hurdler under all conditions all-time for NCAA history, behind only the legendary Renaldo Nehemiah of Maryland.
By running 13.19w, Nugent actually owns the NCAA’s No. 4-ranked performance under all conditions in collegiate history as Nehemiah ran the three fastest at 12.91w, 13.00 and 13.16 during his senior season at Maryland in 1979. Nugent owns a top wind-legal time of 13.58 during the 2011 campaign.
Nugent will be looking to win his first career NCAA title in the 110-meter hurdles this weekend as he has already finished as the NCAA runner-up in the event during his sophomore season a year ago.