BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The LSU Track & Field teams kicked off this year’s NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships on Friday night with an outstanding effort in qualifying as four Tigers and three Lady Tigers earned their lanes Saturday’s national finals to set up an exciting ending to the 2016 indoor season at the Birmingham Crossplex.
The Tigers were a perfect 4-for-4 in men’s preliminary action on the night with juniors Jordan Moore (60 hurdles), Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake (200 meters) and Michael Cherry (400 meters) each posting the second-best times in their respective events to position the team for a top-four trophy finish in Saturday’s finale.
Senior Fitzroy Dunkley joined his teammate in qualifying for the final in the men’s 400-meter dash as each Tiger advanced to an NCAA Indoor final in an individual event for the first time in his collegiate career.
The Lady Tigers also set themselves up for a strong finish to the indoor season with sophomore All-American and double SEC Indoor Champion Mikiah Brisco advancing to the finals in both of her events in the 60-meter hurdles and 60-meter dash and fellow sophomore All-American Daeshon Gordon joining her teammate in the hurdle final.
“Our teams did just about all they could do to set themselves up for a great end to the meet tomorrow, particularly the men,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver after the first day of competition. “Four of our guys got out there in preliminary races today, and all four advanced to run again tomorrow. That says a lot about their mindset coming here to the championship and wanting to compete.
“I thought maybe we could sneak a couple more women through to the finals, but Mikiah and Daeshon gave us three great chances to score some points when we come back here tomorrow. We can have a great day, and a great end to the indoor season, but our teams need to earn every point they can tomorrow to have the kind of finish we know we can have.
LSU’s athletes were quickly out of the blocks in their first preliminary races of the day as Moore, Brisco and Gordon each set the tone for the day with qualifying performances in the 60-meter hurdles.
Moore was the first to step onto the track in Friday’s opener at this year’s NCAA Indoor Championships as he leaned across the finish line with a personal-best and collegiate-leading effort of 7.58 to win the first men’s heat. He was equaled in the second heat by Oregon’s Devon Allen as the Duck standout clocked a 7.58 of his own that was five one-thousandths of a second faster than Moore’s 7.579 for the top-two times of the day. They also entered the meet as the collegiate leaders in the event with matching seasonal bests of 7.60.
Brisco then set the pace for the Lady Tigers when she stepped into the blocks and turned in a pair of qualifying performances in both the 60-meter hurdles and 60-meter dash on the women’s side to headline the Lady Tigers’ efforts in the prelims. She won the first heat of the 60 hurdles in 8.08 before returning to the track and taking second in the first heat of the 60 meters in 7.25.
Like Moore, Gordon advanced to her first NCAA Indoor final with a personal-best time as she posted an 8.05 for second place in the second heat and the second-fastest time of the day in the women’s 60 hurdles.
The Tigers made it six-straight qualifying performances for the track when Cherry and Dunkley finished 1-2 in the third preliminary heat in the men’s 400 meters as Cherry was the second-fastest qualifier with a time of 46.35 and Dunkley followed as the fifth-fastest qualifier in the field with a run of 46.51 to advance to their first career NCAA finals in the event.
Mitchell-Blake made it a perfect day of qualifying for the Tigers as he became the team’s fourth finalist from four preliminary entries on Friday night when he sprinted to a heat-winning 20.64 for the second-fastest run of the day in the men’s 200-meter dash. LSU’s SEC Indoor Champion trailed only the leading time of the day at 20.63 by Tennessee’s Christian Coleman to advance to his first career NCAA final.
In other preliminary action, junior All-American Jada martin just missed out on a spot in the women’s 200-meter final when she ran 23.35 for 10th place overall in the event. Fellow junior Morgan Schuetz also placed 13th overall between the two heats of the women’s 800-meter semifinals with her time of 2 minutes, 5.84 seconds for seventh place in the first section.
Schuetz later made history with her teammates in the women’s distance medley relay as she joined freshman Hollie Parker, junior Travia Jones and sophomore Hannah Deworth as the Lady Tigers’ first DMR to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships in program history. They teamed to run the eighth-fastest time in school history at 11:23.22 en route to a 10th-place finish in the final event of the day.
Junior All-American Nataliyah Friar also just missed putting the Lady Tigers on the scoreboard for the first time in the meet when she jumped 20 feet, 5 ¼ inches on her first attempt for ninth place in the women’s long jump.
Saturday’s finale at the 2016 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships kicks off for LSU’s teams at 4:25 p.m. CT with the first national finals of the day. The competition will run through the men’s 4×400-meter relay scheduled for 6:40 p.m. as fans can watch the Tigers and Lady Tigers in action at http://ESPN3.com beginning at 3:55 p.m.