BATON ROUGE – Tiger freshman Aaron Ernest made it a perfect 2-for-2 with his second 100-meter dash championship in as many meets outdoors this season, and the Lady Tigers swept sprint relay titles to highlight Saturday’s finale at the 2012 LSU Relays held this weekend at LSU’s Bernie Moore Stadium.
Ernest followed a three-win performance in his collegiate debut outdoors at the Louisiana Classics a week ago by sprinting to the finish line in a windy 10.27 seconds for the NCAA’s No. 3-ranked time in the 100-meter dash in 2012.
The Lady Tigers also made a clean sweep of sprint relay titles during Saturday’s action in the 4×100-meter relay, 4×200-meter relay and 4×400-meter relay to kick off the outdoor campaign. They emerged from the weekend with the No. 1-ranked time nationally in the 4×400 relay at 3 minutes, 36.21 seconds and the No. 2-ranked time in the 4×100 relay at 43.86 among performances entering the day.
In all, the Tigers and Lady Tigers wrapped up this year’s LSU Relays by winning 13 event crowns and by setting 16 personal records in two days of competition at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
“I thought we were able to get a lot of things done in these two days at this meet,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “We have a number of athletes, particularly in the throws, who finally have a chance to go out there and get after it in their events outdoors. When you start adding a lot of those performances to the mix, it’s really exciting to see them be able to open up so well outdoors.”
With five Tigers earning a spot in the men’s 100-meter final after Friday’s qualifying round, it was only a matter of which LSU standout would claim the title as this year’s LSU Relays champion.
After the gun fired, senior All-Americans Barrett Nugent and Keyth Talley were sprinting even with each other about 50 meters into the race before Talley appeared to take control. But Ernest made a late surge to overtake both Talley (10.28w) and Nugent (10.36w) at the finish line with his seasonal-best time of 10.27w to maintain his grip on the No. 3 spot in the NCAA rankings for the 2012 outdoor season.
Fellow freshman Trevor Sansone followed in fifth place with an impressive wind-aided time of 10.43w and sophomore Shermund Allsop finished in eighth place with his time of 10.59w.
Although Ernest, Talley, Nugent and Sansone each ran seasonal bests in the 100-meter final, those times are not considered personal records given an aided tailwind of +3.1 meters per second.
Ernest set his wind-legal PR of 10.31 in winning his first collegiate 100-meter title in his debut a weekend ago at the Louisiana Classics in Lafayette. On the strength of that performance, he was named SEC Men’s Runner of the Week and SEC Men’s Freshman of the Week following his outdoor collegiate debut.
“It’s a good start,” Ernest said after the meet. “I’m getting more comfortable every day and trying to work harder every day. My start was better last week, but my top-end speed and the end of my race was better this week. It’s all a process. I was saying this week I wanted to run 10.1, but Barrett kept telling me that it is all a process. I try to listen to him. He’s a national champion, so I guess that’s good advice to take.”
The Lady Tigers saw little resistance in their sweep of sprint relay titles Saturday as they too home a total of four relay titles on the weekend following their victory in the sprint medley relay on Friday.
They first dropped their seasonal-best time in the 4×100-meter relay with a winning effort of 43.86 for the team of sophomore Jasmin Stowers, senior Semoy Hackett, senior Rebecca Alexander and junior Kimberlyn Duncan after opening the season with a run of 43.94 in the preliminary round. They finished at nearly three seconds ahead of Louisiana-Lafayette (46.62) for the victory.
Hackett, Alexander and Duncan then joined senior Cassandra Tate in winning the 4×200-meter relay with a time of 1:32.64 in their first appearance in the event this season.
The Lady Tigers then wrapped up the LSU Relays with an easy victory in the 4×400-meter relay when the foursome of junior Latoya McDermott, Tate, junior Siedda Herbert and senior Jonique Day opened up the outdoor season by running an early-season NCAA-leading time of 3:36.21.
The Lady Tigers also won a pair of individual titles on the track as sophomore Toshika Sylvester captured the 100-meter dash crown with a wind-aided time of 11.68 (+3.3) and junior Shanekia Hall set a wind-legal PR of 13.61 (+1.4) to claim her first collegiate victory in the 100-meter hurdles.
The Tigers added a 4×400-meter relay title of their own during Saturday’s finale at the LSU Relays with a team of senior Robert Simmons, junior Caleb Williams, senior Ade Alleyne-Forte and senior Riker Hylton clocking in at 3:07.20 for the NCAA’s No. 3-ranked time in their outdoor opener.
With thunderstorms limiting time spent on relay exchanges in training during the week, the Tigers seemed to struggle with their handoffs in the sprint relays on Saturday afternoon. Nugent and Allsop missed the first exchange on the 4×100-meter relay and did not finish, and Williams and Talley passed the baton out of the zone on the second exchange in the 4×200-meter relay and were disqualified.
“One of the great things about hosting the LSU Relays is that we can afford those types of mistakes here,” Shaver said. “We had some very conservative exchanges today. We’ll get to really work on those over the next three days or so before we got to Texas. We know the intensity level will be taken up a notch a week from now when we line it up in our first NCAA-caliber competition of the season.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers also continued their fast start to the 2012 outdoor season in the field events at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium on Saturday as they were led by three personal bests.
Junior Thomas Reinecke wrapped up the meet by taking second place in the men’s pole vault competition in the final event of the day as he cleared a lifetime PR of 17-3 on his first attempt. After clearing a height of 16 feet, 7 ¼ inches on his first attempt, Reinecke set back-to-back PRs with clearances at both 17-0 and 17-3 on his first attempt. He entered the meet with an outdoor PR of 16-8 ¼.
Reinecke finished behind only Kovey Simmons of Southeastern Louisiana for the pole vault title after the Lion standout cleared a best of 17-5 in the competition on his second jump.
Senior Aaron Moore led the way for the Tigers with an impressive season-opener in the javelin as he took second place with a series-best mark of 225-9 on his third throw of the preliminary round. What was even more impressive was his series that featured marks of 221-6 on his first throw and 222-9 on his second throw as he finished runner-up to the winning mark of 235-1 by Colin Moleton of the Neo Track Club.
Fellow senior Ryan Roubion threw a personal best of 214-5 on his sixth and final throw of the day to take third place behind Moore, while sophomore Philip LeBlanc followed in fourth place after shattering his personal best in the event by exactly seven feet with a series-best of 208-1 on his third attempt.
Also claiming a silver medal during the LSU Relays finale was Tiger senior Kyron Blaise, who posted his series-best mark of 54-2 ¾ on his sixth and final jump of the competition to take runner-up honors behind the wind-legal mark of 54-7 ½ by Lawrence Willis of U.S. Express Track Club.
Since Blaise’s best effort of 54-2 ¾ was set with an illegal tailwind of +5.4 meters per second, he posted a top NCAA qualifying mark with a wind-aided 53-5 (+3.7) in the fifth round of jumps that moves him into the No. 1 spot in the NCAA rankings through two weeks of the outdoor season. His best wind-legal effort of the day came in the fourth round of jumps with a leap of 51-10 ½ (+1.0).
Tiger freshman Rodney Brown, the reigning SEC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week, also captured his first collegiate discus title on Saturday with a series-best mark of 182-4 on his first throw of the day.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers return to action next weekend as they make their annual trip to Austin, Texas, for the 85th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays scheduled to start Wednesday at Mike A. Myers Stadium at the University of Texas. The four-day showcase will continue through Saturday, March 31.