BATON ROUGE – Two members of the LSU Track & Field program have been honored by the Southeastern Conference for their performance at the 88th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays this past weekend as senior Rodney Brown and freshman Daeshon Gordon picked up SEC Athlete of the Week honors from the league office on Tuesday.
Brown has been chosen as the SEC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week for the second-straight week to kick off the outdoor season, while Gordon has picked up her second selection as the SEC Women’s Freshman of the Week this year as she was also honored by the league office on Feb. 3 during the indoor season.
This actually marks the fourth time in his collegiate career that Brown has been named the SEC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week as he also picked up honors on March 20, 2012, and April 1, 2014.
After opening the 2015 outdoor season by throwing an NCAA-leading mark of 207 feet, 11 inches to claim the men’s discus title at the Louisiana Classics on March 21, Brown made it a perfect 2-for-2 this season with his dominant victory at the Texas Relays on Friday to extend his national-leading performance in the event.
Despite qualifying for the final in sixth place with a top mark of 186-7 on his third throw of the preliminary round, Brown outclassed the field in the finals as he finished nearly 14 feet ahead of second place. He took the lead with a throw of 201-3 in the fourth round and never looked back as he raised the stakes to 209-8 in the fifth round and 205-1 in the sixth round to take the title over professional athlete Russ Winger of Asics with a series-best mark of 195-10 to score the silver medal.
In his 12 throws taken through two meets this season, Brown has recorded six marks that are better than Maryland-Eastern Shore’s Dillon Simon (197-3) as the No. 2-ranked discus thrower in the NCAA this season that includes throws of 198-6 in the first round, 198-7 in the fourth round and 207-11 in the fifth round at the Louisiana Classics along with his final three throws in the final at the Texas Relays this past weekend.
Brown’s victory on Friday afternoon is LSU’s fourth all-time at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays after John Nichols was crowned a three-time men’s discus champion at the meet in his career in 1989, 1990 and 1992.
While making her collegiate debut outdoors with the Lady Tigers, Gordon ran the fastest hurdle race of her young career when she raced to the finish line in a wind-aided time of 13.09 (+3.7) to claim fourth place in the final of the women’s University 100-meter hurdles on Saturday at the Texas Relays. After grabbing the ninth and final spot into the final during the qualifying round, Gordon posted the fastest hurdle time of her career with a windy 13.09 to emerge as the No. 1-ranked hurdler in the SEC and No. 4-ranked hurdler in the NCAA under all conditions this season.
She took fourth place in a loaded final on Saturday behind a trio of All-Americans in Baylor’s Tiffani McReynolds (12.75w), Notre Dame’s Jade Barber (12.81w) and Texas Tech’s Le’Tristan Pledger (12.99w).
Gordon’s 13.09w shattered her previous career-best wind-aided time of 13.44w she ran as a high school senior at Northeast High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last season, and is more than four tenths of a second faster than the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked freshman in Arkansas’ Taliyah Brooks (13.55w) for the 2015 outdoor season.
LSU’s SEC Athletes of the Week for 2015
SEC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week
March 24 – Rodney Brown
March 31 – Rodney Brown
SEC Women’s Runner of the Week
Jan. 20 – Morgan Schuetz
SEC Women’s Field Athlete of the Week
Jan. 13 – Tori Bliss
SEC Women’s Freshman of the Week
Jan. 13 – Mikiah Brisco
Feb. 3 – Daeshon Gordon
March 31 – Daeshon Gordon