BATON ROUGE – Senior Barrett Nugent and junior Charlene Lipsey highlighted LSU’s 14 event wins with NCAA-leading performances while leading the No. 2-ranked Tigers and Lady Tigers to the sweep of team titles during Saturday’s “Battle on the Bayou” held at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
The teams combined for nine top-10 performances in the NCAA this spring while setting 18 new personal records to dominate the team races in Saturday’s sweep at the “Battle on the Bayou.”
The Lady Tigers took home the women’s team crown while scoring 157.5 points in 19 events contested in the meet to finish 42.5 points clear of Mississippi State (115) in the final standings. Iowa followed in third place with 91 points, while Illinois (82) and Missouri (72.5) rounded out the women’s top five.
The Tigers defended their home turf after racking up 174.5 points on the afternoon to finish well ahead of the 106 points scored by runner-up Texas Tech in the final men’s team standings. Illinois scored bronze at 87.5 points, while Mississippi State (85) and Penn State (82) followed in the final men’s top five.
“We had a great day today. It was nice to have some great teams in here and have the ability to put on this kind of a scored meet here today. We would like to see more of that, if you want me to be real honest,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “We were fortunate to have some great weather and great some very strong competition here today. It was just a great meet all the way around.”
Perhaps the featured attraction at the second-annual “Battle on the Bayou” was the final of the men’s 110-meter hurdles that showcased the two previous NCAA champions in the event.
Nugent, who kicked off the defense of his NCAA crown with a win at the Texas Relays a week ago, lined up beside Illinois standout Andrew Riley in the first of three heats on Saturday as a NCAA Championship preview early in the outdoor season. Riley was crowned the NCAA Champion in the 110-meter hurdles as a sophomore at Illinois just two seasons ago during the 2010 campaign.
The two rivals quickly separated themselves from the rest of the field after a strong start and ran shoulder-to-shoulder through 10 hurdles before Nugent was the first to lean across the finish line for the title with a seasonal-best wind-legal time of 13.49 ahead of Riley’s season-opening run of 13.52.
Nugent now owns the fastest wind-aided (13.37) and wind-legal (13.49) times in the NCAA this spring as he continues his march toward another national championship in June.
“It was a good, clean race. As long as it was clean, I’m happy,” Nugent said. “I don’t think we were really pushing each other too hard today. We’re great rivals and have great respect for each other. I want to win, but it would mean a lot more at NCAAs. It doesn’t matter at all until we run at nationals.”
Lipsey followed a little more than a half hour later with a winning effort in the women’s 800-meter run as she emerged as the NCAA leader in the event with a new lifetime personal record.
While running with former Lady Tiger national champion and 2008 Olympian Neisha Bernard-Thomas of Grenada, Lipsey took control of the race in the final 100 meters and kicked to the finish line with a time of 2 minutes, 2.91 seconds in her 2012 outdoor opener. Bernard-Thomas ran 2:03.71 for second place.
Not only did Lipsey put herself at the top of the NCAA rankings this season with her victory, but she also moved into the No. 5 spot on LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list in the event.
“When you race against somebody like that, you have to take it out fast if you want to win,” Lipsey said. “We went out in something like 58 or 59 seconds. That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone out in the first lap. We train so hard, so I felt like I was in 2:02 shape. I didn’t run so well my last time out at NCAA Indoors, and I just wanted to come out here and compete and put myself right back in the mix.”
The finals of the 400-meter dash produced four Top 10 times in the NCAA by the Tigers and Lady Tigers as LSU’s All-America hopefuls made their outdoor season debut in the event on Saturday.
Senior Rebecca Alexander was the first to step onto the track for the Lady Tigers in the first of three heats with her first appearance in the 400-meter dash outdoors this spring. After holding the lead for most of the race, Alexander crossed the finish line with a personal best of 52.52 to finish second to Mississippi State’s Jody-Ann Muir (52.47) while clocking the two fastest times in the NCAA this season.
Junior Siedda Herbert claimed fifth place in the first heat of the women’s 400 meters with the sixth-fastest run of the day at 53.59 to slash nearly a half second off her previous PR in the event.
Lady Tiger senior Jonique Day followed with a personal-best performance of her own in finishing first for the second heat with her season-opening time of 52.72. Day smashed her previous PR of 53.91 entering the meet by more than a second with the NCAA’s No. 4-ranked time in 2012.
The first heat of the men’s 400-meter finals was just as electric as it produced four of the five fastest times in the NCAA, including impressive season openers by LSU’s Riker Hylton and Caleb Williams.
While the Mississippi State duo of Tavaris Tate (45.45) and James Harris (45.58) led a 1-2 sweep for their Bulldogs with the No. 1 and No. 2 times nationally this season, Williams finished in third place overall with a season-opening time of 45.79 and Hylton followed in fourth place with a 46.07 opener on Saturday afternoon. Williams and Hylton emerged as the No. 4 and No. 5 400-meter runners in the NCAA this year with their effort. Senior Ade Alleyne-Forte added strong opener of 46.56 to win the second heat.
The trio later returned for the “Battle on the Bayou” finale as freshman Quincy Downing joined Williams, Alleyne-Forte and Hylton in setting an outdoor seasonal best in the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:03.20 to finish as runners-up to the quartet from Mississippi State (3:03.12). Their time of 3:03.20 is the NCAA’s No. 4-ranked performance in the mile relay for 2012.
Two other LSU athletes posted top-10 performances in the NCAA rankings while claiming event titles in Saturday’s competition in their season opener at the “Battle on the Bayou.”
Senior Cassandra Tate earned a nearly half-second victory in the women’s 400-meter hurdles after ending the race in 57.06 for the No. 3-ranked time in the NCAA this spring. Senior Michael Lauro later ended the day’s field events by claiming the men’s hammer throw title with a season-opening toss of 212 feet, 2 inches for the No. 7-ranked performance nationally for the 2012 campaign.
Lady Tiger sophomore Jasmin Stowers made it a sweep of sprint hurdles titles for LSU on Saturday when she clocked the No. 6-ranked wind-legal time in the collegiate ranks this year at 13.10 to edge Mississippi State’s Keisha Wallace (13.20) at the finish line for her first win of the outdoor season.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers added a sweep of titles in three other events on Saturday, including the 4×100 relay, 100-meter dash and long jump on both the men’s and women’s sides.
While running with a squad of sophomore Takeia Pinckney, senior Semoy Hackett, Alexander and junior Kimberlyn Duncan, the Lady Tigers won the women’s 4×100-meter relay in 43.74 ahead of the team from Texas Tech (44.01). The Tigers followed with their victory for the men’s sprint relay as Nugent, freshman Aaron Ernest, senior Keyth Talley and freshman Trevor Sansone clocked 39.74 in the win.
Talley (10.39w) and Hackett (11.39) followed with a sweep of 100-meter dash titles to help lead LSU to a sweep of team titles at this year’s “Battle on the Bayou.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers also owned the long jump as junior Damar Forbes set a series-best wind-legal mark of 25-7 ¼ on his fifth jump to take the men’s title and junior Brittany Porter recorded a top wind-aided mark of 20-4 ½ on her sixth and final jump of the day to claim the women’s crown.
Senior Samia Stokes was LSU’s first event champion of Saturday’s “Battle on the Bayou” as she recorded a seasonal-best throw of 173-0 on her second throw en route to her second win this season in the women’s discus event. After opening the season with a top mark of 171-5 in winning the Louisiana Classics, Stokes raised her seasonal best to 173-0 while moving into the No. 12 spot in the NCAA rankings for 2012.
Also winning event titles for LSU on Saturday were senior Aaron Moore (216-9) in the men’s javelin and junior Laura Carleton (10:00.29) in the women’s 3,000-meter run. Carleton’s PR in the 3k moved her into the No. 8 spot on LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list in the event.
Sophomore Annie Simoneaux also became the No. 8-ranked performer in school history with her effort in taking third place in the women’s javelin with a top mark of 152-9 in the competition.
Other notable personal bests on Saturday included a trio of Tigers in the men’s 800-meter run when junior Howard Shepard III earned a fifth-place finish overall with a time of 1:48.47, followed by senior James Thurn (1:49.53) in eighth place and freshman Quincy Downing (1:50.76) in 13th place overall.
“Considering we’re coming off an emotional meet like the Texas Relays, it was great to see our athletes respond and get themselves ready to compete this afternoon,” Shaver said. “I thought we got better as two teams today. That’s what we expect from our athletes week in and week out.”
With this year’s “Battle on the Bayou” now in the books, the LSU Track & Field teams are ready for their Spring Break trip to Tempe, Ariz., next week as they will spend four days training at Arizona State’s Sun Angel Stadium before competing at the Arizona State/Arkansas/LSU Tri-Meet on April 14. The teams are then set to host this year’s LSU Alumni Gold at Bernie Moore Stadium on Saturday, April 21.