BATON ROUGE – LSU Track & Field arrived in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday with two of the nation’s top teams ahead of the 2016 outdoor season as the Lady Tigers topped the charts at No. 1 and the Tigers slotted in at No. 4 in the preseason power rankings announced by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
The Lady Tigers have earned the No. 1 national ranking in the preseason as they return a strong squad that also ranked among the nation’s elite during the 2015 season. Eight All-Americans scoring in six different event finals at the 2015 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships have returned to compete for the Lady Tigers during the 2016 season.
The Tigers return four scoring All-Americans of their own as they received a No. 4 preseason ranking following back-to-back fourth-place team finishes at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2014 and 2015.
The USTFCCCA’s preseason rankings released ahead of the outdoor season factor only the seasonal-best performances of athletes returning to the NCAA Division I ranks from the 2015 outdoor season. The USTFCCCA, which started its national power ranking in 2008, will calculate 2016 results along with 2015 seasonal bests until the final week in April when only top times and marks from 2016 will be considered.
Among the Lady Tigers’ returning All-Americans from a season ago and the team’s top NCAA finisher returning to the squad this spring is junior Rebekah Wales, who placed fourth nationally in the women’s javelin final to cap a breakout sophomore season in 2015. Wales is the No. 2-ranked javelin thrower in Lady Tiger history with her career best of 179 feet, 11 inches set last season.
Three Lady Tigers who earned sixth-place individual finishes at the NCAA Championships return along with Wales to steer the team into 2016. Senior Chanice Chase in the 100-meter hurdles, junior Nataliyah Friar in the triple jump and sophomore Aleia Hobbs in the 100-meter dash each scored three points in individual event finals at the NCAA Outdoor meet in 2015.
Chase, who is also a former NCAA scorer in the 400-meter hurdles with a PR of 56.27 seconds in the event, ran her personal best of 12.95 in the sprint hurdles at the NCAA Championships. Friar set career bests of 21-10 ¾ wind-aided in the long jump and 43-10 wind-legal in the triple jump during her sophomore season with the Lady Tigers. Hobbs proved to be one of the NCAA’s leading sprinters in her rookie season as she finished by clocking a wind-legal best of 11.13 in the 2015 national final in the 100 meters.
Junior Jada Martin and sophomore Daeshon Gordon both scored one point for the team with eighth-place individual finishes at the NCAA Championships while Martin set a personal best of 22.76 in the 200 meters and Gordon clocked a wind-legal best of 12.97 in the 100 hurdles in 2015. Gordon even lined up in the NCAA semifinals in the 400 hurdles where she posted a lifetime best of 57.24 in the event.
Hobbs and Martin also teamed with Mikiah Brisco and Rushell Harvey as one of the nation’s leading 4×100-meter relay teams with a 2015 seasonal best of 42.80 and a fifth-place national finish last spring.
The Tigers’ sprinters, hurdlers and relay teams accounted for all 45 of the team’s points at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships last June, and many make their return for the 2016 season looking to improve upon the fourth-place national finish they have earned in each of the last two outdoor seasons.
Tremayne Acy returns for his junior season following a sophomore campaign in which he finished fourth nationally in the 200 meters while running his career-best wind-aided time of 20.04 in the national final. He even returns to lead LSU’s 4×100-meter relay team that won the NCAA Outdoor bronze medal with a seasonal-best time of 38.62 at the NCAA Championships.
The Tigers also return two members of their NCAA Outdoor Champion 4×400-meter relay team from a year ago when seniors Fitzroy Dunkley and Cyril Grayson ran the second and third legs, respectively, for the squad the ended 2015 with a seasonal-best time of 3 minutes, 1.96 seconds. They also teamed with first-year transfers LaMar Bruton and Michael Cherry to win the NCAA Indoor title in the relay just two weeks ago.
Cherry, the 2015 ACC Champion in the 400 meters, ran a personal best of 45.37 in the event when running for Florida State a year ago, while Bruton posted his personal best of 45.67 running for Ohio State. Other Tigers factored into the preseason rankings include junior Jordan Moore with a best of 13.47 in the 110 hurdles and junior Blair Henderson with a best of 1:47.02 in the 800 meters.
USTFCCCA Preseason Top 25
WOMEN
Team (Points) 2015 Finish
1. LSU (270.46) 11
2. Oregon (264.49) 1
3. Arkansas (253.88) 4
4. Southern California (248.59) 7
5. Texas A&M (243.79) 3
6. Georgia (242.05) 5
7. Texas (201.08) T9
8. Kansas State (191.37) T9
9. Kentucky (173.74) 2
10. Florida (169.93) 8
11. Mississippi State (168.26) 18
12. Oklahoma (138.34) T15
13. Stanford (115.79) T13
14. Florida State (100.34) 6
15. Notre Dame (98.29) T13
16. Ohio State (97.16) DNS
17. New Mexico (95.97) 48
18. Virginia Tech (95.53) T15
19. Baylor (93.59) T51
20. Michigan State (90.69) T20
21. Miami, Fla. (88.79) T28
22. Michigan (87.80) 19
23. Alabama (87.37) T20
24. Oklahoma State (87.32) T35
25. Wisconsin (83.69) T15
MEN
Team (Points) 2015 Finish
1. Oregon (299.11) 1
2. Texas A&M (225.12) 6
3. Florida (221.77) 2
4. LSU (207.46) 4
5. Arkansas (195.81) 3
6. Alabama (179.50) 31
7. Texas (176.39) 7
8. Virginia (164.73) 17
9. Illinois (152.09) T10
10. South Carolina (138.31) T60
11. Georgia (133.17) 15
12. Stanford (130.18) 16
13. Ohio State (121.32) T37
14. Virginia Tech (118.52) T37
15. Tulsa (118.46) DNS
16. Southern California (114.50) 5
17. North Carolina (11.84) T68
18. Texas Tech (107.97) 9
19. Penn State (94.85) T10
20. BYU (92.57) T13
21. Middle Tennessee State (91.45) T31
22. Colorado (89.28) T51
23. Arizona (87.36) T19
24. Louisville (86.68) T44
25. Kansas State (86.33) DNS