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Track Recruits Shine at New Balance NationalsTrack Recruits Shine at New Balance Nationals

Track Recruits Shine at New Balance Nationals

Track Recruits Shine at New Balance Nationals

BATON ROUGE – LSU’s 2016 recruits were among the brightest stars competing at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in New York this weekend as Tonea Marshall won the girls’ 60-meter hurdles with a new national record and Nickolette Dunbar and Rayvon Grey also won national championships to highlight the action at The Armory.

Dunbar won the girls’ shot put title and Grey captured the boys’ long jump crown in Friday’s opener to become two of the top-five ranked high school athletes indoors in U.S. history in their events.

Grey added a silver-medal-winning performance in the championship section of the boy’s triple jump to add to the five gold and silver medals won by LSU’s recruits in three days of competition. Middle distance recruit Ruby Stauber also scored a silver medal with a runner-up finish in the girls’ 800-meter run to finish the meet as the No. 2-ranked high school half-miler nationally this season.

But it was Marshall who wrote the biggest headlines when she twice broke the national high school record in the 60-meter hurdles in Sunday’s finale when she followed a run of 8.08 seconds in the semifinal with a her winning personal best of 8.02 in the final to strike gold in the event. Marshall, who broke Dior Hall’s 2-year-old national record of 8.11 last run in 2014 by nearly one tenth of a second, actually set three-straight personal bests during the meet after opening with a time of 8.16 in Saturday’s first round.

“I’m very excited,” Marshall told MileSplit’s Johanna Gretschel following her first national record in the semifinal round. “I wasn’t going out there to run the national record, I was just going out there to run my race.”

A native of Arlington, Texas, Marshall entered this year’s New Balance Indoor Nationals with a previous seasonal best of 8.28 she ran to win the event title at the Arkansas High School Invitational back in January. She is now the fastest 60-meter hurdler to ever step onto the track in a high school meet in the United States.

Sunday’s championship final in the 60-meter hurdles actually featured two future Lady Tigers as Hoover, Alabama, native Brittley Humphrey followed Marshall in fourth place with a personal-best time of 8.24 to rank in the No. 6 spot in the national rankings for the 2016 indoor season. She also set three-straight personal bests during the meet with times of 8.39 in the prelims and 8.29 in the semifinal round.

Grey became LSU’s first New Balance Indoor Nationals Champion of the weekend with a dominant performance in the boys’ long jump on Saturday where he soared to a lifetime best of 26 feet, 0 ¼ inches.

After taking control of the competition with a PR jump of 25-8 in the second round, Grey added more than four inches to his lifetime best in the sixth round with his mark of 26-0 ¼ to become the No. 3 high school long jumper indoors in U.S. history. The Beacon, New York, native added more than one foot to his previous personal best of 24-11 entering the meet.

“I think it was just the speed I had, and my consistency on the board,” Grey told MileSplit following his long jump victory. “I’ve been working on it in practice, and it came up good. I actually moved (his mark) back three feet, I think. I switched to a nine-step (approach) from an eight-step just trying to bring more speed in, and it worked out. I’ll see what I can do in the triple jump, maybe pop another big one.”

Grey followed his win in the long jump on Saturday by scoring the silver medal in the championship division of the boys’ triple jump on Sunday with a top jump of 49-3 ¾ on his sixth and final attempt of the competition to finish just 3 ¼ inches behind first place. Grey is also the nation’s No. 3-ranked high school triple jumper with an indoor PR of 49-6 ½ set in winning the New York state championship in the event this season.

Dunbar followed Grey’s victory with a gold-medal-winning performance of her own in the girls’ shot put when she unleashed a lifetime PR of 54-7 ½ to finish more than one foot farther than the national leader.

A native of Whippany, New Jersey, Dunbar stepped into the shot put circle for the first time on Friday with a previous personal best of 53-2 set just two weeks before at the New Jersey Meet of Champions. It took her throws of 54-6 ¾ in the fourth round and 54-7 ½ in the sixth round to smash her previous best and finish more than one foot ahead of the silver-medal mark of 53-3 ½ on the day.

“I’ve been having some pretty good practices, so I was hoping for something good. When I knew I got my hand on the ball, I felt it,” Dunbar told MileSplit after the event. “I kind of felt like I could have pushed it maybe a little harder, but I was happy with the throw. It got me pumped up, and I knew I had to keep building on it.”

While first making her name as one of the nation’s top 800-meter recruits with an outdoor PR of 2 minutes, 5.67 seconds in 2015, Stauber dropped her lifetime best to 2:05.56 in Sunday’s final to take the silver medal in the event back home to Plymouth, Minnesota. That run made Stauber the No. 2-ranked high school half-miler in the United States for the 2016 indoor season.

Lady Tiger sprint recruit Cassondra Hall of Eastman, Georgia, also appeared at the New Balance Indoor Nationals this weekend and finished among the top performers in the girls’ 60-meter and 200-meter sprints.

After qualifying fifth with a time of 23.97 on Saturday, Hall nearly took home the bronze medal in the girls’ 200-meter final in the last event on Sunday when she raced to the finish line in 23.80 for fourth place overall. It was an appearance that also saw her place 10th in the 60-meter dash with times of 7.48 in the prelim and 7.51 in the semifinals.

Hall is already the No. 4-ranked high school sprinter nationally in both events in the 2016 indoor season as she has clocked indoor bests of 7.36 in the 60 meters at the Vanderbilt High School Invitational and 23.73 during the University of Kentucky High School Invitational earlier this year.