BATON ROUGE – Two Lady Tiger freshmen went out with a bang in Sunday’s finale at the 2015 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships when All-American sprinters Aleia Hobbs and Mikiah Brisco led the United States to the gold medal in the women’s 4×100-meter relay with a winning time of 43.79 seconds at Foote Field in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
With Hobbs running the second leg and Brisco running the third leg, the LSU teammates connected at the second exchange in Sunday’s sprint relay final and they joined with Teahna Daniels on the first leg and Deanna Hill on the anchor leg in a winning run of 43.79 as the only team to break 44 seconds in the race.
The United States cruised to an easy victory over the field as they beat the silver medalists from Jamaica (44.31) to the finish line by more than a half second, while Bahamas won the bronze medal in 45.96.
Hobbs climbed the medal podium for the second time at this year’s Pan Am Junior Championships after scoring the silver medal in the women’s 100-meter dash on Friday night in her international debut for the United States. Brisco became the third Lady Tiger to medal during the competition with her gold-medal-winning performance in the 4×100-meter relay on Sunday afternoon.
Also taking home a medal with her performance at this year’s Pan Am Junior Championships was fellow freshman All-American Daeshon Gordon, who raced to the bronze medal with Friday’s final of the women’s 100-meter hurdles when she clocked 13.70 (-1.7) in the event. Gordon earned the right to represent Jamaica in the competition after setting the Jamaican junior record of 12.97 in June’s qualifying.