The Tigers featured a balanced attack while taking home the fourth-place team trophy from the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships a season ago after also earning a top-10 team finish with a tie for eighth place nationally during the 2014 indoor season. Leading the way were nine All-Americans in such event areas as the sprints, hurdles, relays and throws as the Tigers again cemented their position as one of the top teams in collegiate track and field.
They will follow that formula for success again in 2014 as they return seven of their nine All-Americans from last year to help fuel a national championship run during the 2015 campaign. Led by the likes of seniors Aaron Ernest, Vernon Norwood, Quincy Downing, Rodney Brown and their powerful relay teams as NCAA title contenders, the pieces are in place for the Tigers to contend for their first national championship since the 2004 season.
Third in a 10-part series previews the men’s middle distance and distance runners during the 2015 season.
Men’s Middle Distance/Distance
The Tigers have built a strong tradition in the middle distance events over the years, and they will compete during the 2015 season with a pair of 800-meter runners who will look to make their mark on the program in senior Julian Parker and sophomore Blair Henderson.
Henderson signed with the Tigers as one of the top 800-meter recruits nationally a season ago, and delivered on that promise as an NCAA Championships qualifier in the event in his debut season with the Tigers in 2014.
After wrapping up the indoor season as the ninth-place finisher in 800-meter qualifying at the SEC Indoor Championships and with an indoor personal best of 1 minute, 49.37 seconds, Henderson followed by running a lifetime PR of 1:49.18 outdoors at the LSU Alumni Gold while qualifying for the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds to cap his rookie campaign.
The Lake Charles, Louisiana, native broke 1:50 in the event in seven races a year ago and slashed nearly a second and a half off of his high school personal best of 1:50.47 that was run as a senior at St. Louis Catholic High School prior to his arrival in Baton Rouge.
A two-year letterwinner in his time with the Tigers, Parker is coming off a 2014 season in which he clocked personal bests of 1:49.92 indoors and 1:49.72 outdoors while breaking the 1:50 barrier for the first time in his collegiate career. He enters his senior season with a best SEC finish of 12th place in the 800 meters from the SEC Indoor Championships a year ago.
Headlining LSU’s distance crew is senior standout Philip Primeaux, who returns as a former point scorer at the SEC Outdoor Championships as the eighth-place finisher in the final of the 1,500 meters at the conference meet in 2013. The Baton Rouge native followed with another strong season in 2014 in which he smashed personal bests with career-best times of 3:50.76 in the 1,500 meters and 4:09.25 in the mile.
A specialist in the mile indoors and 1,500 meters outdoors, Primeaux is also one of the team’s leading performers in the longer distances in the 3,000 meters and 5,000 meters during his collegiate career.