The Lady Tigers relied on youth to return them amongst the NCAA’s elite in 2015 as they cracked the Top 10 by tying for ninth place at the NCAA Indoor Championships before ending the season with an 11th-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships with their performance. In all, eight Lady Tigers turned in All-American performances over the course of the season while seven of those athletes reached All-America status for the first time in their collegiate careers.
All eight of those All-Americans make their return to the squad in 2016 as LSU will once again challenge for top honors at the SEC and NCAA Championships. Chanice Chase returns as the only senior All-American in the squad, while other All-Americans in juniors Nataliyah Friar, Rushell Harvey, Jada Martin and Rebekah Wales; and sophomores Mikiah Brisco, Daeshon Gordon and Aleia Hobbs hope to make 2016 a season to remember in Baton Rouge.
Seventh in a 10-part series previews the women’s hurdlers that are poised to rank among the NCAA’s elite once again during the 2016 season.
Women’s Hurdles
Just like their stable of sprinters, the Lady Tigers feature a team of talented hurdlers as they look to join the national championship race and push for the trophy places at the NCAA Championships in 2016 as All-Americans Chanice Chase and Daeshon Gordon headline the squad following outstanding seasons last spring.
After claiming her first career All-America honor in the 400-meter hurdles as a sophomore in 2014, Chase earned a spot in the NCAA final in the 100-meter hurdles for the first time a season ago when she posted a new personal best of 12.95 seconds in a sixth-place finish nationally to score three points for the Lady Tigers.
Gordon added a point herself in the national final as she placed eighth in her NCAA Championship debut just one year after joining the Lady Tigers from Northeast High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Chase first emerged as one of the NCAA’s leading 400-meter hurdlers during her sophomore season in 2014 when she ran her personal best of 56.27 in a fifth-place finish at the SEC Outdoor Championships before she went on to equal that finish with a fifth-place showing after running 56.51 in the national final at the NCAA Championships held at Oregon’s Hayward Field.
While returning to the NCAA semifinals and earning a 14th-place finish in the event overall a year ago, Chase’s junior season in 2015 was highlighted by her performance in the sprint hurdles as she broke 13 seconds for the first time in her career in the national final with a lifetime best of 12.95 (+1.7) to rank as the ninth-fastest hurdler in program history.
A talented dual hurdler in her own right, Gordon joined the Lady Tigers as one of the top high school talents nationally with PR times of 13.61 in the 100 hurdles and 58.70 in the 400 hurdles during her prep career.
The Jamaican international showed tremendous improvement in only one season with Dennis Shaver‘s coaching as she dropped her personal bests to lows of 12.97 in the 100-meter hurdles and 57.24 in the 400-meter hurdles over the course of her freshman season in 2015. Her run of 12.97 at the Jamaican National Senior Championships last summer set a new Jamaican junior record, while her best of 57.24 for 10th place in the NCAA semifinal moved Gordon to No. 8 on LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list in the event.
Gordon also enjoyed an All-SEC debut at the SEC Outdoor Championships held at Mississippi State’s Mike Sanders Track Complex last May where she followed a sixth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles by joining up with Chase and fellow teammates Jada Martin and Travia Jones in a bronze-medal-winning third-place finish in the 4×400-meter relay final.
Gordon was also an NCAA Championships qualifier in her debut season indoors at LSU as her personal-best time of 8.20 in the 60-meter hurdles earned her a fifth-place finish at the SEC Indoor Championships.
Their performance in the hurdle events down the stretch was key in the Lady Tigers competing for a top-10 finish at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships where they were just outside in 11th place. The Lady Tigers are sure to count on their experience and All-American pedigree in their push for the top places in the team standings throughout the 2016 season.
The Lady Tigers will actually feature three of the 10 fastest 400-meter hurdlers in the school’s history during the 2016 outdoor season as they also welcome back Compton, California, native and former Long Beach Poly High School standout Kymber Payne to the track for her sophomore season.
Payne was an NCAA Championships qualifier in the 400 hurdles in her debut season with the Lady Tigers a year ago, clocking a personal-best time of 58.10 in a 14th-place finish overall in the national quarterfinals held at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds in Jacksonville. That time cracked the Top 10 of LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list at No. 10 as she ended her rookie season among the fastest Lady Tigers in history.
Junior Bryiana Richardson is a two-time NCAA qualifier in the 400-meter hurdles during a collegiate career in which she has run a PR of 58.61 as she followed a quarterfinals appearance as a freshman in 2014 with a first-round spot as a sophomore a year ago. Fellow junior Ka’Lynn Jupiter also lined up in the first round of qualifying at the NCAA East Prelims last spring after she earned a seventh-place finish in her first career SEC final at the SEC Championships while running a personal best of 58.55.