BATON ROUGE – LSU junior Natoya Goule has taken the NCAA by storm as the nation’s leading middle distance runner in her debut season with the Lady Tigers, and she made history once again Saturday afternoon by breaking her own outdoor school record in the women’s 800-meter run at the LSU Alumni Gold held at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
Goule won her first 800-meter race outdoors in 2013 at UCLA’s Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational on April 6 when she first set LSU’s school record with a personal best of 2 minutes, 1.18 seconds.
She slashed more than four tenths of a second off of her own school record with a winning run of 2:00.76 at the LSU Alumni Gold event that also broke the Bernie Moore Track Stadium facility record while lowering her NCAA-leading and World-leading time for the 2013 outdoor season.
Goule’s effort set the pace for four performances by the Tigers and Lady Tigers on Saturday afternoon that cracked the Top 10 of the NCAA rankings this spring. Also dropping their NCAA rankings were senior Charlene Lipsey as the No. 2-ranked 800-meter runner, junior Nikita Tracey as the No. 5-ranked 400-meter hurdler and the Tigers as the No. 4-ranked 4×100-meter relay team.
LSU’s athletes also wrapped up the day with eight personal-best performances and three event victories in the championship finals held Saturday afternoon.
“I thought our athletes did a great job of doing what we asked them to do today. This was another positive step forward for both of our teams,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “The highlight of our day was seeing what Natoya Goule was able to do in the 800. It’s impressive to get on the Bernie Moore Stadium track and set a record with the events we’ve hosted and all of the athletes who have run here over the years.
“I was also impressed by what Charlene Lipsey did today as she ran faster today than she did at this meet last year. That’s a great sign for where she is right now. We saw some significant jumps in our performances for the season. Nikita Tracey had a big breakthrough today. I liked how we ran the relays after shuffling our lineups a little bit.”
Goule’s victory in the 800 meters proved to be the story of the meet as she neared the two-minute barrier again while setting a school record for the third-straight time in an 800-meter race.
After being crowned the NCAA Indoor champion with an indoor school record of 2:02.00 in the 800-meter final at the NCAA Indoor Championships, Goule has now set a school record in each of her two races during the outdoor season with back-to-back lifetime bests of 2:01.18 at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational on April 6 and 2:00.76 at the LSU Alumni Gold on Saturday afternoon.
And she broke the Bernie Moore Track Stadium record by the slimmest of margins as former Lady Tiger standout Neisha Bernard-Thomas set the mark at 2:00.77 at the LSU Alumni Gold meet in 2010.
Saturday’s race also featured LSU’s 2008 NCAA Indoor champion LaTavia Thomas as the Philadelphia native returned to her alma mater as part of the festivities at this year’s LSU Alumni Gold.
Goule and Lipsey battled their predecessor to the finish line in an exciting finish as Thomas followed in second place at 2:02.72 and Lipsey finished the race in third place with a seasonal-best time of 2:03.13. Lipsey’s run is the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked performance behind Goule’s national-leading 2:00.76 and is more than two seconds faster than her opener two weeks ago.
“Today felt a little bit easier than when we ran at UCLA because we paced it better,” Goule said following the race. “When Coach (Mark Elliott) said I was at 1:27-high at 600 meters, I knew I had a lot left in me and had a shot to run two minutes. I didn’t quite get there, but I finished the race pretty strong.
“I didn’t expect to run that fast today coming in because I cramped up a little bit last week. But I felt good running the race and had a little bit left in me at the end.”
Tracey also turned in a seasonal-best performance to rank among the NCAA’s elite while finishing runner-up in the women’s 400-meter hurdles to former Lady Tiger national champion Cassandra Tate.
Tracey, who entered the meet with a seasonal-best time of 57.35 seconds in the event, raced to a personal record of 56.51 for second place behind Tate’s winning 56.40. Tracey held a slight lead over Tate as they raced over the eighth hurdle, but the former NCAA Champion surged ahead over the final hurdle and across the finish line for the win.
While running a PR of 56.51, Tracey emerged as the NCAA’s No. 5-ranked 400-meter hurdler this season as she smashed her previous best of 56.89 set while running for Jamaica at the 2010 NACAC Championships. Two other Lady Tigers also ran seasonal bests in the race with matching times of 58.72 as sophomore Chanice Chase took fourth with a personal best and junior Shana-Gaye Tracey followed in fifth.
The Tigers certainly set the tone on the track when lining up in the men’s 4×100-meter relay as they raced to a new seasonal best while also cracking the NCAA’s Top 5 in the event.
While lining up with a team of senior Damar Forbes, sophomore Aaron Ernest, freshman Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and senior Shermund Allsop for the first time this season, the Tigers passed the stick around the track in 39.24 for fourth place behind Texas A&M (39.02), the Tiger Olympians (39.16) and Team Canada (39.18) in the final. LSU is now ranked No. 4 nationally in the sprint relay this season.
Allsop also ran wind-aided seasonal bests in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes with times of 10.39 (+2.3) for seventh place in the 100-meter final and 20.91 (+2.7) for third place in the 200-meter final.
Ernest sprinted through the finish line with a time of 10.35 (+1.2) for third place in the first heat of the men’s 100-meter dash as he trailed Alabama’s NCAA leader Diondre Batson (10.26) and Texas A&M’s Ameer Webb (10.27). Mitchell-Blake followed Allsop in fourth in the 200 meters while running a wind-aided time of 20.98.
“Our top athletes have been consistently performing well for us, but we’ve been needing our No. 2 and No. 3 people to step up and compete a little bit better than what they have to this point,” Shaver said. “They are the ones who we will be counting on at the SEC meet in a few weeks. That’s another area where it felt like we got a little bit better today as a team.”
Making her final appearance at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium in an LSU uniform was Lady Tiger senior Kimberlyn Duncan, who is set to wrap up one of the more storied careers in collegiate history this season.
After teaming with senior Latoya McDermott, senior Siedda Herbert and junior Toshika Sylvester to run 43.95 for second place in the women’s sprint relay final, Duncan cruised to an easy win in the 100 meters with her wind-legal run of 11.19 (+1.8) to take the tape ahead of Nike’s Chelsea Hayes (11.34) and Texas A&M’s India Daniels (11.44).
It was Duncan’s final appearance in Baton Rouge in a remarkable collegiate career as a six-time NCAA Champion, nine-time SEC Champion and 11-time All-American with the Lady Tigers. The reigning Bowerman winner also had The Bowerman trophy on display during Senior Day festivities on Saturday afternoon to honor the career of one of the true greats of LSU Track & Field.
Junior Karen Henning led the field-event action as she captured the women’s hammer throw crown with a series-best mark of 194 feet, 9 inches, while fellow junior Denise Hinton took third place in the event at 185-6.
Two Tigers scored silver medals in the jumps as senior Damar Forbes posted a wind-legal mark of 25-0 ½ for second place in the men’s invitational long jump and sophomore Andreas Duplantis equaled his outdoor best with a clearance of 17-7 for second place in the men’s pole vault with the 16th-best mark in the NCAA this spring.
Forbes was runner-up to former LSU All-American Jeremy Hicks in the invitational long jump as Hicks soared to a wind-aided 27-3 in the third round of jumps to finish more than two feet ahead of the Tiger senior.
Sophomore Montenae Roye-Speight enjoyed her best performance as a Lady Tiger as she sprinted to her best collegiate time in the 400-meter dash at 53.70 for fourth place in the women’s final.
Other LSU athletes setting outdoor personal bests during Saturday’s action include junior Leigh-Ann Naccari with an eight-second PR of 17:34.70 in the 5,000 meters, sophomore Philip Dempsey with a run of 4:02.05 for the 1,500 meters, sophomore Bryan Mutell (15:48.81) and freshman Travis Pope (15:37.96) in the 5,000 meters and freshman Terry Hughes with a mark of 142-5 in the hammer throw.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers are set to wrap up the 2013 regular season next weekend with their annual trip to historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia for the 119th running of the Penn Relay Carnival scheduled to be held at the University of Pennsylvania on April 25-27.