COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Fueled by nine wins in the 15 events contested during Saturday’s competition, the No. 2-ranked Lady Tigers scored an impressive win over the defending champion Aggies at the second-annual LSU vs. Texas A&M Dual Meet held at the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium.
The Lady Tigers tallied 82.5 points on the afternoon to avenge their defeat in the inaugural dual meet held a year ago, while the Aggies finished six points back after scoring 76.5 points on Saturday afternoon.
Texas A&M earned the victory on the men’s side for the second year in a row by a 88-68 margin over the No. 3-ranked Tigers in a clash of future Southeastern Conference rivals.
The Tigers added seven wins of their own on the afternoon to give LSU a total of 16 event championships during this season’s dual meet. A total of 19 indoor personal records were set by both the Tigers and Lady Tigers over the course of the meet to highlight an impressive afternoon of competition by both teams.
“It’s been an exciting afternoon of competition between the two premier programs in our sport,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “I’m certainly proud of the way in which our athletes competed today, and the way in which they represented our program and LSU. Our women got off to a fast start and earned a great win, and I thought our men did some good things here this afternoon as well.
“I feel like our sport needs more of this. Our meets are certainly more exciting when the team is the focus and the athletes are competing for one another. That’s what you saw our there today.”
Junior All-American Charlene Lipsey scored LSU’s first points of the contest with her impressive victory in the women’s mile in the first event on the track. After running on the hip of Texas A&M miler Natosha Rogers for much of the race, Lipsey took a commanding lead on the bell lap and never looked back before crossing the finish line in 4 minutes, 45.04 seconds ahead of Rogers (4:45.84) in second place.
Lipsey, an 800-meter specialist for the Lady Tigers, is already ahead of her own All-America pace from a year ago after setting back-to-back personal bests in the mile to open the 2012 campaign. By clocking her PR of 4:45.04 on Saturday she now ranks No. 5 on LSU’s all-time performance list in the event.
Lipsey’s performance sparked a run of three-straight victories by the Lady Tigers on the track to open the meet as sophomore Jasmin Stowers and senior Cassandra Tate continued the momentum.
Stowers equaled her season-opening performance from a week ago at the Crimson Tide Indoor Opener as she won the women’s 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.35 seconds.
Tate then followed with a national-leading performance in winning the women’s 400-meter dash crown as she raced to a new indoor personal record of 53.13 in the first of three heats. Senior All-America Rebecca Alexander made it a 1-2 sweep for the Lady Tigers with her win in the second section as she posted a new 2012 seasonal best of 53.63 for the No. 3-ranked 400-meter performance in the NCAA this season.
Following her third-place finish in the 60-meter dash, junior Kimberlyn Duncan opened the defense of her NCAA Indoor 200-meter crown with a dominating win in her 2012 season debut in the event.
While running stride-for-stride with Texas A&M’s Dominique Duncan through the first 100 meters of the race and around the final turn, the Lady Tiger sprint star surged into the front and across the finish line for an easy win in 23.29 as her Aggie rival followed behind in second place overall with a time of 23.56.
While the Lady Tigers captured four individual event titles on the track, sophomore Denise Hinton turned in perhaps the most impressive performance by a Lady Tiger during the competition with her victory in the 20-pound weight throw. After opening the 2012 season with a personal best of 58 feet, 7 ½ inches last week at the Crimson Tide Indoor Opener, Hinton improved by nearly five feet on Saturday afternoon with a mark of 63-2 to lead a 1-2 finish by the Lady Tigers as senior Samia Stokes (59-3 ½) took second.
What’s most impressive about Hinton’s victory is that each of her six throws eclipsed the 60-foot mark as she now owns the No. 19-ranked performance in the NCAA this season with the No. 2-ranked mark in the storied history of the LSU women’s track and field program.
Hinton led a trio of Lady Tigers taking home event titles in the field events as she was joined by medalists in freshman Tori Bliss in the shot put and sophomore Lynnika Pitts in the triple jump.
Bliss set an indoor personal best of her own while winning the shot put with a mark of 50-11 ½ that ranks No. 5 on LSU’s all-time indoor performance list. Pitts added a victory for the Lady Tigers in the women’s triple jump with a season-opening mark of 40-11 ¾ during the competition.
The Lady Tigers clinched the dual meet title over Texas A&M with their win in the distance medley relay as junior Brea Goodman (1,200 meters), Lipsey (400 meters), freshman Samantha Levin (800 meters) and junior Laura Carleton (mile) combined for a winning time of 11:49.57. The Aggies finished second with a time of 11:54.80 in the women’s distance medley relay.
The Lady Tigers then wrapped up this year’s dual meet with a victory in the 4×400-meter relay event after Alexander teamed with the likes of junior Latoya McDermott on the leadoff leg, junior Siedda Herbert on the third leg and senior Jonique Day on the anchor leg for the third-fastest time in the NCAA this indoor season at 3:35.80. They finished more than one second ahead of the Aggies (3:36.82) for the relay sweep.
“I was very pleased with the effort our women showed today. They earned it,” Shaver said. “I’m proud of the way they competed from start to finish. They kept it going through the relays and finished it off with a couple of big wins there. We expect nothing less of our athletes in a competition like this.”
The Tigers were led by the performance of junior Caleb Williams for the second week in a row as he won his second-straight 400-meter title with the nation’s leading time in the event.
Williams, who opened the 2012 season with a time of 47.38 to win the 400-meter crown a week ago at the Crimson Tide Indoor Opener, won the first of three heats on Saturday afternoon with his NCAA leader of 46.60 to finish well ahead of Aggies Joey Roberts (47.19) and Ricky Babineaux (47.30).
Senior NCAA champion Barrett Nugent also turned in a performance that ranks among the top five in the NCAA through two weeks of the season with his win in the men’s 60-meter hurdles. Nugent cruised to an easy win over Aggie junior Wayne Davis II (7.93) with the NCAA’s fifth-fastest time at 7.82.
The Tigers also won five of the six field events on Saturday afternoon, including senior Kyron Blaise (50-10) in the triple jump, senior Michael Lauro (61-5 ½) in the 35-pound weight throw, junior Damar Forbes (24-1 ½) in the long jump, junior Thomas Reinecke (16-8) for the pole vault and freshman Rodney Brown (51-1 ½) in the shot put. Brown’s performance in the shot put is an indoor personal record.
Freshman Quincy Downing led a group of nine other Tigers setting indoor PRs during Saturday’s meet as he clocked a lifetime personal best of 1:51.20 in a second-place finish in the 800-meter run.
Other Tigers who set PRs during the meet include senior James Thurn (1:52.16) in the 800 meters; juniors Cullen Doody (15:08.09) in the 5,000 meters and Anthony Whitaker (48.79) in the 400 meters; sophomores Roger Cooke (15:34.02) in the 5,000 meters and Courtney Edwards (8.35) in the 60-meter hurdles; and freshmen Andreas Duplantis (16-8) in the pole vault, Trevor Sansone (6.87) in the 60 meters and Jeremy Tuttle (52-10 ¼) in the 35-pound weight throw.
Two Lady Tigers establishing indoor bests also cracked the Top 10 of LSU’s all-time indoor performance list on Saturday as sophomore Brianne Bergeron cleared a height of 11-7 in the pole vault that ranks No. 7 in school history and fellow sophomore Leigh-Ann Naccari clocked the eighth-fastest 5,000-meter time in program history at 18:06.05 to help pace the Lady Tigers.
Other Lady Tigers setting indoor personal records on the afternoon include senior Brieanna Kennedy with a mark of 58-8 in the weight throw, sophomore Laura Aleman with a time of 18:14.75 in the 5,000 meters and freshman Samantha Levin with a time of 2:10.11 in the 800 meters.
“We’ve seen some nice improvements from our opener last week to this week,” Shaver said. “We hope to continue that trend when we go to Arkansas next week for another opportunity to improve as a team.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers return to action next weekend with a trip to the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark., as they are set to compete at the Razorback Invitational on Jan. 27-28 on the campus of the University of Arkansas. They follow with an annual trip to New York for the New Balance Collegiate Invitational being held Feb. 3-4 at The Armory Track & Field Center.