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Brown's Record Throw Highlights Final Day at PennBrown's Record Throw Highlights Final Day at Penn

Brown's Record Throw Highlights Final Day at Penn

Brown’s Record Throw Highlights Final Day at Penn

PHILADELPHIA – LSU’s NCAA-title hopeful Rodney Brown stepped into the discus ring for his final appearance at the Penn Relays and walked away a champion for the second-straight season as he smashed his own meet record and school record in the event to highlight Saturday’s finale in the 121st running of the Carnival at Franklin Field.

Brown’s was one of three wins for the Tigers on the final day of the competition as LSU’s foursome finished the event with a seasonal best in winning the Championship of America title in the men’s 4×400-meter relay and sophomore Jordan Moore climbed the award’s podium as champion of the men’s 110-meter hurdles.

Brown, who was named the Men’s College Individual Athlete of the Meet a season ago after posting the previous Penn Relays meet record with a winning 210 feet, 10 inches in 2014, let the discus fly a distance of 213-4 on his second attempt of Saturday’s qualifying round to take an early lead and cruise to victory for the second year running in his final Carnival appearance.

Brown proved to be the class of the field once again as his winning 213-4 outlasted Virginia’s Filip Mihaljevic (207-0), UWI-Mona’s Fedrick Dacres (206-8) and Penn’s Sam Mattis (202-9) for the title.

Fouling his opening throw of the competition, Brown trailed the likes of Mihaljevic and Mattis early on as each posted opening throws of 192-9 to take the early lead. Brown responded straightaway with a meet-record and school-record throw of 213-4 to extend his NCAA lead in the event and claim his sixth discus title in as many appearances in 2015.

Mihaljevic posted his top throw of 207-0 in the final round to claim second place, while Dacres posted a best of 206-8 in the fourth round for third place and Mattis threw 202-9 in the fourth round for fourth place in the event. Rounding out the field were Tennessee’s Tavis Bailey (197-6) in fifth, UWI-Mona’s Traves Smikle (193-5) in sixth, Texas’ Clint Harris (191-6) in seventh and Cincinnati’s Macklin Tudor (179-0) in eighth.

The previous Penn Relays meet record of 210-0 by Wake Forest’s Andy Bloom in 1996 stood for 18 years before Brown etched his name in the record books last season. His own meet-record throw lasted only 364 days as he wrote another chapter in the story of one of the most decorated throwers to wear the LSU uniform.

The native of Chappell Hill, Texas, extended his NCAA lead after stepping into the ring Saturday as the top collegian in 2015 with a previous seasonal best of 209-8 in his victory at the Texas Relays back on March 27.

The Tigers have now captured four discus titles all-time at the Penn Relays as Brown joined LSU’s former All-American Alex Forst in 1999 and 2000 as a back-to-back Carnival champion in the event.

“It’s a really big meet to throw at. The fans are right there behind you in the ring. All of my teammates were here cheering me on, so that gave me confidence going in,” Brown said of the atmosphere on Saturday. “It’s a place where I’ve had success before, so I already had that confidence coming into the event. I’ve thrown well all season so far, so I knew what I had to do today to work on what we’ve been doing in training.”

Brown has been one of the most consistent performers across all of the event areas in collegiate track and field in 2015 as he has eclipsed the 200-foot mark in each of his six wins on the year. That includes wins at each of the Louisiana Classics (207-11), Texas Relays (209-8), Battle on the Bayou (203-3), Jim Click Shootout (200-6) and LSU Alumni Gold (208-3) before Saturday’s victory.

The national championship hopeful will next turn his attention to his final appearance as an LSU Tiger at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium as he will throw the discus at the LSU Invitational next weekend.

“One of my goals is to be over 200 feet in each meet. I know if I get over that mark, I have a chance to win each time,” Brown explained. “It’s paid off so far. Once I get that 200-foot throw, I really go for it from there. It was what I wanted to do here. Now I can look forward to next week. I’ll have a lot of family watching me, and I’ve got my eye on that stadium record. I want to get that record in an LSU uniform.”

While Brown turned in a record-setting performance in claiming the men’s discus title in his final Penn Relays appearance, Moore took the tape in the championship final for the men’s 110-meter hurdles in his debut to become LSU’s 70th individual champion in the meet’s storied history. And it’s a final he nearly missed after grabbing the eighth and final qualifying spot from Friday’s preliminary round.

In one of the fastest qualifying rounds in recent memory at the Penn Relays, Moore took eighth place with a time of 13.89 (+0.5) to earn the final spot in Saturday’s final alongside senior teammate Joshua Thompson.

With the wind turning around and the finalists running into a stiff headwind of -1.9 meters per second, Moore was the strongest in the field as he crossed the finish line first for a winning 13.84, just one one-hundredth of a second ahead of Clemson’s Justin Johnson in second place at 13.85. Thompson trailed in third place with a bronze-medal-winning time of 13.93.

Following Moore (13.84) and Thompson (13.93) across the line in the final were Syracuse’s Freddie Crittenden (13.99) in fourth, Texas’ Spencer Dunkerley-Offor (14.09) in fifth, Hampton’s Trey Holloway (14.11) in sixth, South Carolina’s Dondre Echols (14.11) in seventh, University Tech’s Ronald Levy (14.16) in eighth and Houston’s Isaac Williams (14.22) in ninth.

Moore, in his first season in Baton Rouge after transferring from TCU in January, continued his recent run of form with his fourth-straight victory in the 110-meter hurdles this collegiate season as he also recently won a title at the Battle on the Bayou (13.92w), Jim Click Shootout (14.04) and LSU Alumni Gold (13.67) in recent weeks.

With his victory, Moore became just the second LSU Tiger crowned the Penn Relays champion in the 110 hurdles as he joined 2011 NCAA Champion Barrett Nugent as the 2010 Carnival champion in the event.

“I just want to thank God, my family and my coaches. Without them, I wouldn’t even be here today,” Moore said after his win. “It’s taken me a little time transferring, playing football at TCU to get my weight down but Coach (Dennis Shaver) really stuck with me. I told him when we came outdoors, I was going to do it. I was always playing football in the fall, so I never got to train like this. I’ve got the greatest coach in the world, Coach Shaver, in the hurdles hands down. He’s helped me so much get to this point.

“I knew I was going to win. I was actually glad I wasn’t running in the middle. We saw how tight the lanes were yesterday, and I almost took a mean fall off the last (hurdle). Being on the outside, I slid my blocks over so I wouldn’t hit anybody. You know, I work my start every day rolling with Tremayne Acy and Aaron Ernest in my 100s trying to get my times down.”

The Tigers later went out with a bang as resounding winners of the men’s Championship of America 4×400-meter relay final as they took the tape in a blistering seasonal best of 3 minutes, 2.61 seconds.

With senior Quincy Downing putting the Tigers in second place at the first exchange thanks to a strong 46.6-second split on the leadoff leg, junior Fitzroy Dunkley gave the team a lead it would not relinquish as he raced past Western Kentucky’s Emmanuel Dasor at the 650-meter mark and turned in a 45.8-second split for his efforts as he handed off to senior Vernon Norwood at the second exchange.

Norwood, the NCAA’s leading 400-meter runner for the 2015 outdoor season, split 45.88 on the third leg as the Tigers held an insurmountable lead as senior Darrell Bush took the stick on the anchor. A native of nearby Woodbury, New Jersey, Bush brought it home in 45.33 on the anchor leg for a seasonal-best time of 3:02.61 by the Tigers in the final.

They finished more than two seconds clear of Texas A&M (3:04.99) for the win as they scored LSU’s fifth Championship of America title all-time in the event and their first since 2012. Clemson followed in third overall in 3:07.68 with St. Augustine’s (3:08.16) in fourth, Western Kentucky (3:08.36) in fifth, G.C. Foster (3:09.98) in sixth, Texas (3:11.03) in seventh, Pittsburgh (3:13.04) in eighth and South Carolina (3:13.51) in ninth.

Like he did Saturday, Downing ran the leadoff leg for the Tigers the last time they won the 4×400-meter relay at the Penn Relays in 2012 when he teamed with Robert Simmons, Ade Alleyne-Forte and Riker Hylton.

“Coming in my freshman year, we had a whole team of seniors, and I ran first leg just like I did today,” Downing shared. “The team needed me to run a good leadoff to put us in a good position. I think I did that. You’ve got to give that kind of senior leadership like those guys did for me back then. Every meet is a new challenge for us. Coming here to the Penn Relays and winning is great, but we know there’s more to come.”

LSU Track & Field left Franklin Field on Saturday with six wins on the weekend, including individual wins by both Brown and Moore and the Tigers taking home the Championship of America title in the 4×400 relay in the final day of the competition. Two Lady Tigers were crowned champions on Thursday with senior Tori Bliss scoring the shot put crown and sophomore Nataliyah Friar winning the long jump title while the Lady Tigers also won the Championship of America title in the shuttle hurdle relay on Friday in the 121st running of the Penn Relay Carnival.

The Tigers and Lady Tigers left Franklin Field on Saturday afternoon with exactly 70 Championship of America relay titles and 70 individual event titles in the championship division all-time at the Penn Relays.

“It’s a great illustration of the consistency this program has shown each year we have come to the Penn Relays,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver of his 70 individual and relay titles his program has won all-time. “It is a special meet, and our athletes take great pride in the way they represent LSU when they come here. We are proud to add to our history this week.”

Before Moore’s title-winning performance in the 110-meter hurdles, two Lady Tigers lined up in the championship final of the women’s 100-meter hurdles as junior Chanice Chase and freshman Daeshon Gordon were among the top qualifiers on Friday afternoon. Gordon matched her wind-legal personal best with a time of 13.26 (+0.5) for third place, while Chase followed with a time of 13.54 (+0.5) for sixth place in the race.

Nearly adding to LSU’s five wins at this year’s Penn Relays was senior Jeremy Tuttle, who added more than two feet on his seasonal best in a runner-up finish in the championship division for the men’s hammer throw. Tuttle, who threw 192-6 for 11th place in the championship javelin earlier in the day, posted a seasonal-best mark of 210-7 in the third round to lock up a third-place finish in the hammer throw.

Tuttle’s 210-7 on Saturday eclipsed his previous seasonal best of 208-3 set at Arizona’s Jim Click Shootout two weeks ago while cracking the NCAA’s Top 25 for 2015 as the No. 24-ranked mark this outdoor season.

The Lady Tigers raced in one Championship of America relay final as part of Saturday’s finale as the team of freshman Mikiah Brisco, sophomore Rushell Harvey, freshman Aleia Hobbs and sophomore Jada Martin ran 1 minute, 32.38 seconds for third place overall in the women’s 4×200-meter relay, trailing Jamaica’s University Tech (1:30.80) and Texas A&M (1:31.17) across the finish line.

Gordon (first leg), Martin (second leg) and Chase (anchor leg) each returned to the track for the college final of the women’s 4×400-meter relay as they teamed with sophomore Travia Jones on the third leg to clock an effort of 3:35.41 for second place in the race behind Texas A&M’s winning 3:35.10. Penn State trailed in third place at 3:37.59.

In other field-event action, senior Andreas Duplantis cleared a height of 16-6 ¾ to take 10th place in the men’s championship pole vault and junior Terry Hughes threw 192-7 for 16th place in the men’s college javelin. For the college division of the men’s hammer throw, junior Patrick Geers threw a series-best of 184-3 in the second round to finish in 16th place in the event.

With another trip to Philadelphia and the 121st running of the Penn Relay Carnival now in the books, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will return home next weekend to wrap up their regular season when they play host to an exciting field at the LSU Invitational being held May 2 at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium. They welcome the likes of Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss and Miami to Baton Rouge for the meet.