BATON ROUGE – Sophomore Blair Henderson and senior Julian Parker each slashed nearly two seconds off of their personal bests in a 1-2 finish in the men’s 800-meter run to headline seven Top 10 performances in the NCAA rankings by the LSU Track & Field teams during Saturday’s Battle on the Bayou held at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
With temperatures dipping into the 50s to start the meet and winds gusting at Bernie Moore Stadium throughout the afternoon, junior Fitzroy Dunkley (400 meters), sophomore Jordan Moore (110 hurdles), freshmen Mikiah Brisco (100 meters) and Aleia Hobbs (100 meters) and the Tigers’ 4×400-meter relay team each cracked the Top 10 of the national rankings with their performance.
But it was LSU’s half-milers who grabbed the headlines when Henderson and Parker each broke 1 minute, 49 seconds for the first time in their collegiate careers in a heated race to the finish line.
While lining up in the first of two heats in the men’s 800-meter dash, Parker took an early lead in the race on the first lap and extended his advantage into the second lap as it quickly turned into a two-horse race to the finish line for the title. Henderson overtook his teammate around the 600-meter mark and held on for a narrow victory down the homestretch as he and Parker turned in two of the NCAA’s fastest times in 2015.
Henderson was the first to cross the finish line with a personal-best time of 1:47.91 as he took the title by less than one tenth of a second ahead of Parker as the runner-up with a lifetime best of his own at 1:47.99.
It marked the first time in three seasons for an LSU Tiger to break 1:48 in the 800 meters as Henderson slashed his previous lifetime best of 1:49.18 with the No. 6-ranked time nationally and Parker eclipsed his previous best of 1:49.72 with the No. 7-ranked time nationally in the event this season. Henderson’s winning 1:47.91 also tied him as the No. 10-ranked 800-meter runner in school history. They were nearly two seconds clear of the rest of the field Saturday as New Orleans’ 1:49.66 trailed in third place at 1:49.66.
“That’s probably the performance of the meet today with what those guys were able to do in the 800,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “With the conditions we saw today, it wasn’t an easy day to run races around the oval from the 400 on up. They really pushed one another for two laps to be able to run that fast on a day like today. That was very impressive here at this meet.”
Dunkley turned in a personal best of his own while cracking the NCAA’s Top 5 with a win in the 400-meter dash before running the third leg on LSU’s mile relay that clocked the fifth-fastest time nationally.
Like the men’s 800-meter heats, the first heat of the men’s 400-meter dash turned into a head-to-head battle between two Tigers for the title as Dunkley battled junior teammate Cyril Grayson all the way to the finish line for the win. After opening the season on March 21 with his winning run of 47.15 at the Louisiana Classics, Dunkley took the tape in 46.55 ahead of Grayson’s season-opening 47.20.
By setting a lifetime best of 46.55 on Saturday afternoon, Dunkley catapulted himself eight spots up the national rankings with the No. 5-ranked time in the NCAA this season. With Dunkley lining up on the third leg and Grayson running anchor, they later teamed with senior Quincy Downing and junior Darrell Bush in winning the men’s 4×400-meter relay in 3:07.60 for the nation’s fifth-fastest time this outdoor season.
Setting the pace for the Lady Tigers at this year’s Battle on the Bayou were Brisco and Hobbs as they turned in a 1-2 finish in their collegiate debuts in the women’s 100-meter dash. In one of the only wind-legal races of the afternoon, Brisco sprinted to the finish line with a wind-legal personal best of 11.47 (+2.0) to emerge as champion ahead of Hobbs in second place with a season-opening run of 11.61 (+2.0).
Brisco sprinted into the NCAA’s Top 10 following her first 100-meter race as a Lady Tiger as her personal best of 11.47 tied for the No. 6 spot in the national rankings for 2015. Hobbs followed her teammate to the line at 11.61 to tie for the No. 9 position in the early-season NCAA rankings for this outdoor season.
Just one week after running his fastest wind-legal race this season at 13.96 in the final at the 88th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, Moore nudged his way into the NCAA’s Top 10 in the men’s 110-meter hurdles as he ran a top wind-aided time on the year at 13.92 (+3.3) for the win in a two-man final for the 10th-fastest time in the national rankings this spring.
Seven Top 10 nationally-ranked performances highlighted a strong Saturday afternoon for the Tigers and Lady Tigers as they also set 11 personal bests and captured 15 event wins during this year’s competition.
“We always want to take those steps forward as a team with each meet that will give us the best opportunity to compete come the championship season,” Shaver said. “We saw a number of athletes here today that’ll gain a lot of confidence going forward and give themselves a chance to progress even further from here. There’s a lot of work still to do, but we’re off to a good start outdoors.”
After running the nation’s second-fastest sprint relay time this season at 38.93 in a runner-up finish at the Texas Relays last Saturday, the Tigers returned to the track at the Battle on the Bayou and followed with a very impressive 39.32 on a chilly afternoon as their team of senior Joshua Thompson, senior Vernon Norwood, sophomore Tremayne Acy and senior Aaron Ernest took the title well ahead of a Tiger Olympians foursome for second place in a time of 41.01. The Tigers are certainly one of the NCAA-title contenders in the event on the strength of their early-season form.
While Brisco and Henderson won their respective events with personal bests that rank among the Top 10 performances nationally this season, junior Travis Pope and freshmen Christian Johnson and Kymber Payne ran event-winning personal bests of their own during the competition to continue the team’s momentum on the day.
In the only event held Friday evening, Pope laced up his spikes in the men’s 10,000 meters and stormed to an easy victory by nearly one minute over the rest of the field with a personal-record run of 31:26.24. Johnson then opened Saturday’s finals on the track by racing to a nearly 15-second personal best of 9:30.06 to take the top spot in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Payne led an impressive quartet of Lady Tigers running the 400-meter hurdles during Saturday’s competition as she smashed the personal best she set in her collegiate debut at the Texas Relays a week ago.
Moments after sophomore Ka’Lynn Jupiter (59.56) and freshman Daeshon Gordon (59.77) took the top two spots in the first section, Payne followed with a heat-winning run of 59.48 in the second section to finish just a half second ahead of sophomore teammate Bryiana Richardson (59.97) for a 1-2 finish in their race. Payne was crowned champion while eclipsing her season-opening PR of 59.73 at the Texas Relays last weekend.
Jupiter broke one minute in the 400 hurdles for the third-straight race with a time of 59.56 as runner-up to Payne (59.48) in the event, while Gordon took third place overall with a time of 59.77 in her collegiate debut in the event followed by Richardson in fifth place with a seasonal-best time of 59.97 for her performance on the afternoon.
Already the NCAA’s leading performer this season in the men’s discus, senior All-American Rodney Brown made it a perfect 3-for-3 on the year while throwing a Battle on the Bayou meet record of 203 feet, 3 inches in the fifth round to finish more than 30 feet in front of his nearest competitor. Brown’s winning mark of 203-3 on Saturday eclipsed the previous meet mark of 201-10 set by UCLA’s Julian Wruck in 2014.
Brown is an early-season NCAA-title contender as the only 200-foot discus thrower nationally in 2015 as Saturday’s victory follows wins at the Louisiana Classics (207-11) and Texas Relays (209-8) to open the season.
LSU’s other event champions during Saturday’s action at the Battle on the Bayou were seniors Tori Bliss (162-8) in the women’s discus and Jeremy Tuttle (209-6) in the men’s javelin; and sophomores Elizabeth Dunning (18:38.73) in the women’s 5,000 meters, Rushell Harvey (23.89w) in the women’s 200-meter dash and Jonathan Pitt (48-8) in the men’s triple jump.
Other athletes setting personal bests during the competition include freshman Joseph St. Cyr (15:19.26) and senior Bryan Mutell (15:45.69) in the 5,000 meters, junior Garret LeBouef (193-6) in the javelin and freshman Matthew Rhorer (50.16) in the 400-meter dash.
With their 2015 outdoor season now in full swing, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will head West for Spring Break as they travel to Tucson, Arizona, next weekend to compete at this season’s Jim Click Shootout being held on Saturday, April 11, at the University of Arizona’s Roy P. Drachman Stadium. The Jim Click Shootout also features Illinois, Purdue and Southern California along with LSU and Arizona.