BATON ROUGE – After earning a pair of third-place finishes at the NCAA Championships while capturing a season sweep of SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor team titles during the 2011 season, the Lady Tigers are primed for another championship run with 10 All-Americans returning that will provide the foundation for one of the nation’s most talented teams this spring.
Like the men’s team, the Lady Tigers feature a balanced squad with All-Americans returning in four of the event areas, including the sprints, hurdles, jumps and middle distance events.
When that experience combines with the No. 6-ranked recruiting class in the country by Track & Field News, it is easy to see why the Lady Tigers will surely join the national championship race again in 2012.
Sprints/Relays
The Lady Tigers have built the success of their program on developing the nation’s premier sprinters at the collegiate level year in and year out, and there is no doubt that their national championship aspirations in 2012 rest upon the foundation of the NCAA’s most talented sprint squad that returns six All-Americans scoring 28.5 points during the 2011 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Junior Kimberlyn Duncan is the leader of the group as arguably the top athlete returning to the collegiate ranks for the 2012 season. Duncan emerged as one of the world’s top sprinters as a sophomore while sweeping NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor championships in the 200-meter dash while setting personal records of 22.78 indoors and 22.24 outdoors a year ago.
A native of Katy, Texas, Duncan was the scoring champion of the NCAA Outdoor Championships a year ago while totaling 20.5 points for the Lady Tigers.
Not only did she sprint to the finish line with a personal record and low-altitude collegiate record of 22.24 to take the 200-meter title, but she also recorded a wind-legal PR of 11.09 to finish as the NCAA runner-up in the 100-meter dash before anchoring the Lady Tigers to a national title in the 4×100-meter relay. She joined Kenyanna Wilson, Semoy Hackett and Rebecca Alexander in the final to run the eighth-fastest time in NCAA history at 42.64 en route to the NCAA crown.
That performance earned Duncan the distinction as a finalist for The Bowerman, which is collegiate track and field’s equivalent to football’s Heisman Trophy.
And the Lady Tigers are as strong as ever as the preseason favorites to defend their crown in the 4×100-meter relay. Both Alexander and Hackett return from LSU’s winning relay foursome a season ago, while sophomore All-American Takeia Pinckney looks to return to form in the wake of a 2011 season in which she was sidelined with a hamstring injury. Rising sophomore Toshika Sylvester also adds depth in LSU’s sprint relay pool this spring.
Hackett earned four All-America honors in her first season with the Lady Tigers last year while setting PRs of 7.22 in the 60 meters, 11.17 in the 100 meters and 22.84 in the indoor 200 meters as a junior in 2011. The reigning SEC 100-meter champion added five All-SEC honors for her performance in winning the SEC Commissioner’s Trophy as the top individual point scorer at the SEC Outdoor Championships as a junior and being named the SEC Outdoor Runner of the Year.
Alexander was an NCAA Championship qualifier in the 200-meter dash both indoors and outdoors in her first season with the Lady Tigers a season ago while setting an impressive lifetime PR of 22.96 during the indoor season. She also competed in the 400-meter dash while setting a lifetime PR of 53.03 indoors.
Pinckney is hoping to recapture the All-America form she displayed as a true freshman in 2010 when she was the fourth-place finisher in the 100-meter final at the NCAA Outdoor meet. She boasts personal bests of 7.24 in the 60 meters, 11.26 in the 100 meters and 23.32 in the 200 meters.
In addition, the Lady Tigers are sure to contend for All-America honors in the 400-meter dash and 4×400-meter relay this season as they feature a deep stable of quartermilers.
The Lady Tigers return all four legs from their mile relay team that earned a third-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships a year ago as Alexander (53.24), senior Cassandra Tate (51.50), junior Latoya McDermott (53.35) and senior Jonique Day (52.29) teamed to run 3 minutes, 30.37 seconds in the national final. Day, McDermott and Siedda Herbert were also NCAA Championships qualifiers in the 400 meters outdoors last season.
A pair of highly-touted freshmen will also look to crack the lineup in the mile relay as St. Louis natives Montenae Roye-Speight (53.62) and Kendra White (53.72) join the LSU program following a pair of prep careers among the nation’s premier 400-meter recruits in the Class of 2011.
Hurdles
While the Lady Tigers are sure to score most of their points in the sprints and relays as they compete for SEC and NCAA championships again this spring, they will also pack a punch in the hurdle events as perhaps the only team in the country to feature national title contenders in both the sprint hurdles and intermediate hurdles during the 2012 season.
Tate has solidified her position among the elite 400-meter hurdlers in the NCAA with her performance in the past two seasons, dropping her personal record to 55.99 in the national semifinals en route to her first career NCAA finals appearance in the event a year ago.
A senior from Hammond, La., Tate spent much of her freshman and sophomore seasons with the Lady Tigers as a long sprinter while splitting her time outdoors between the 200 meters and 400 meters before being introduced to the 400-meter hurdles by head coach Dennis Shaver as a sophomore in 2010. She has responded by earning the SEC Outdoor crown in the event in her debut at the conference meet that season before advancing as far as the national semifinals during the postseason.
Tate took her performance to another level as a junior in 2011 as she again earned an All-SEC selection with a runner-up finish in the 400 hurdles at the SEC Championships, before advancing to the event final at the NCAA Championships for the first time as a Lady Tiger.
The 2011 season also saw the emergence of one of the nation’s premier sprint hurdlers with true freshman Jasmin Stowers capturing All-America honors and sweeping SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor crowns to highlight a historic rookie campaign with the Lady Tigers.
Stowers certainly showed the potential that earned her the reputation as the No. 1-ranked prep recruit in the country for the Class of 2010 out of the gate with an All-America effort in her NCAA Championships debut during the 2011 indoor season. After racing to a personal best of 8.12 in the 60-meter hurdles in her victory at the SEC Championships, Stowers picked up an All-America selection with a sixth-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Stowers carried that momentum into the outdoor season as she became the first freshman in program history to be crowned the SEC Outdoor champion in the 100-meter hurdles, setting an impressive wind-legal personal record of 12.88 in the conference final.
Former junior college national champion Shanekia Hall solidifies the squad’s depth in the hurdles after transferring to LSU from Essex County College as part of the Class of 2011. Hall earned her back-to-back NJCAA Indoor titles in the 60 hurdles in 2010 and 2011 and the NJCAA Outdoor crown in the 100-meter hurdles in 2011. She set PRs of 8.37 in the 60 hurdles and 13.80 in the 100 hurdles at ECC.
Middle Distance/Distance
The Lady Tigers have produced some of the nation’s leading performers in the middle distance events in recent years, and they are sure to contend for postseason recognition once again in 2012 as Charlene Lipsey of Hempstead, N.Y., returns for her junior season to lead the team as one of the NCAA’s emerging stars in the 800-meter run.
Lipsey, who signed with the Lady Tigers as the No. 1-ranked 800-meter recruit in the country for the Class of 2009, earned her first career All-America honor as a sophomore in 2011 with her fourth-place finish in the 800-meter final at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. With an impressive run in her first career national final, Lipsey set a lifetime personal record of 2:03.73 to take fourth place overall against a tremendous field at the NCAA Championships.
Lipsey is now a seasoned veteran with three NCAA Championships appearances in two fruitful seasons in Baton Rouge as she is a strong All-America contender again this spring.
While Lipsey will lead the Lady Tigers in the middle distance events, fellow junior Laura Carleton returns to lead the squad in the longer distances following a 2011 campaign in which she competed in both the 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds for her first career NCAA Championships appearance.
Carleton is certainly one of the top returning performers in the SEC after taking sixth-place finishes at the SEC Championships while running the mile indoors and 1,500 meters outdoors. That’s where she established new personal bests with her top times of 4:51.94 in the mile and 4:23.21 in the 1,500 meters in helping the Lady Tigers sweep SEC team titles a season ago.
The Lady Tigers are also excited to add prep standout Samantha Levin to the program for the 2012 season as she signed with LSU as one of the premier 800-meter recruits in the country for the Class of 2011. The product of Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis ended her prep career ranked No. 2 nationally in her graduating class with a PR of 2:06.74.
Jumps/Multis
While the Lady Tigers have built a strong tradition in the jumps featuring some of the NCAA’s premier performers to compete at the collegiate level, perhaps no single group on the team has been most affected by graduation and attrition following the 2011 season.
Brittani Carter wrapped up a brilliant career as the most decorated high jumper in the history of the Lady Tiger program while earning five All-America honors and capturing back-to-back SEC Indoor titles in the event. Melissa Ogbourne also exhausted her eligibility after winning a pair of All-American honors in the triple jump during her four-year tenure in Baton Rouge.
The Lady Tigers will also compete this season without the services of long jumper Jen Clayton, who elected to transfer following her freshman campaign after winning the SEC Indoor crown and earning an All-SEC second-place finish at the SEC Outdoor meet in 2011.
But returning to lead the group as a senior in 2012 is pole vault star Rachel Laurent, a three-time All-American and five-time All-SEC performer in her own right as one of the NCAA’s leading performers for her collegiate career. She displayed her All-America form a season ago while taking seventh place in the pole vault at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and earning All-SEC honors with runner-up finishes at the SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor meet.
Laurent shattered her own outdoor school record in the pole vault with a seasonal-best clearance of 14 feet, 3 ¼ inches in a third-place finish overall at the Texas Relays. She also boasts an indoor school record of 14-3 ½ that was set as a sophomore in 2010.
Sophomore Lynnika Pitts returns as the most versatile member of the LSU jumps team as she set personal records of 5-8 in the high jump, 19-6 ¾ in the long jump and 41-0 ½ in the triple jump during her rookie campaign with the Lady Tigers a year ago. She earned SEC All-Freshman honors as the top freshman performer in the high jump and triple jump at the SEC Championships while scoring eight points in conference action in her first collegiate season.
Joining Pitts in the horizontal jumps is junior Brittany Porter, who enters the 2012 season as the team’s leader in the long jump with a PR of 20-7 ¼. Porter is a two-time NCAA qualifier while competing at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds in each of the last two seasons.
The Lady Tigers are also poised to make an impact in the multi-events at the SEC and the NCAA levels in 2012 with the addition of the nation’s No. 1-ranked heptathlete at the prep level in Alex Gochenour of Missouri Valley, Iowa.
Labeled by Track & Field News as one of seven “Prize Recruits” signed for the Class of 2011, Gochenour rose to national prominence in 2010 with a gold-medal winning performance in the heptathlon at the USA Junior Championships while setting her personal-best score of 5,300 points. She then competed as part of Team USA at the IAAF World Junior Championships that season.
Strengthening the Lady Tigers in the jumps and multi-events are Southeastern University Louisiana transfer Lacey Sanchez in the pole vault and freshman multi-events prospect Kaitlyn Moreau in both the pentathlon and heptathlon. Sanchez is a former Southland Conference pole vault champion for her time at SLU with a lifetime PR of 13-1 ½.
Throws
The Lady Tigers feature a deep throws group that blends youth and experience in a recipe that is sure to impact the their postseason fortunes as they certainly enter the season among the favorites to contend for SEC and NCAA team titles in 2012.
Samia Stokes and Brieanna Kennedy are a pair of seniors with All-SEC and All-America aspirations who lead a talented group of underclassmen that includes sophomores Karen Henning and Annie Simoneaux and prized recruit Tori Bliss as one of the nation’s heralded freshmen.
Perhaps no Lady Tiger improved her performance in the throws over the course of the 2011 season quite like Kennedy, who made her first career appearance in the national semifinal of the hammer throw at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Kennedy actually enjoyed arguably her best meet in her three years as a Lady Tiger at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds while establishing personal records in both the discus (159-0) and hammer (191-3) throws during the event.
Kennedy stepped up her performance during the championship season while claiming her best career finish in conference action with a fourth-place finish in the hammer at the SEC Outdoor Championships. Kennedy’s five points helped the Lady Tigers complete the 2011 season sweep of SEC titles with a fourth SEC Outdoor crown in five seasons.
Stokes, the 2010 SEC Outdoor discus champion, also scored five points for the team with a fourth-place finish in her specialty at the SEC Outdoor meet a season ago. Stokes has posted personal bests of 176-3 in the hammer and 177-11 in the discus events and is a former NCAA semifinalist in the discus event during her collegiate career.
Henning and Simoneaux also return to the squad as sophomores in 2012 in the wake of strong freshman campaigns as scorers for the Lady Tigers at the SEC Outdoor Championships. In 2011, Simoneaux finished as the SEC Outdoor bronze medalist in the javelin with a PR of 151-3 at the conference meet. Henning added a fifth-place finish in the hammer at the conference meet before raising her PR to 184-5 in a silver-medal winning effort at the USA Junior Championships.
The Lady Tigers are also excited to welcome arguably the nation’s top throws recruit this season as Bliss is set to make her collegiate debt during the 2012 campaign.
Bliss signed with the Lady Tigers as the No. 1-ranked shot putter at the prep level in 2011 after posting a lifetime PR of 50-9 ½ in the event in her final outdoor season at Portage High School in Portage, Ind. Bliss, who actually eclipsed the 50-foot mark in the shot put five times during her senior season, was named the 2011 Indiana Gatorade Girl’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year while also defending her New Balance Outdoor Nationals gold medal a year ago.