BATON ROUGE – Senior Chanice Chase turned in two of the fastest hurdle times in the nation this spring and junior Morgan Schuetz cracked the NCAA’s Top 5 in the 800 meters to headline a Southeastern Conference sweep of titles at the sixth-annual Battle on the Bayou held Saturday afternoon at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
They were among five LSU athletes to emerge among the NCAA’s Top 10 in their events for the 2016 season as junior Jada Martin opened her season in the 200-meter dash, junior Tinashe Mutanga ran a personal best in the 100-meter dash and sophomore Kymber Payne posted a personal best of her own with a top-10 time in the 400-meter hurdles.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers also combined for 19 outdoor personal bests and four event wins in leading the SEC to a title sweep against the Big 12 and Big Ten conferences in Saturday’s competition.
The Tigers teamed with Alabama and Mississippi State to score 164 points in 20 events contested during the meet to guide the SEC to the men’s title over Kansas State and Oklahoma of the Big 12 Conference in second place with 122 points and Ohio State and Purdue of the Big Ten Conference in third place with 120 points. The Lady Tigers were part of the SEC trio that captured the women’s team title with 165 points, followed by the Big 12 in second place with 145 points and the Big Ten in third place with 95 points.
“It’s always fun to be a part of a meet like this where you have a smaller field with five or six teams like we had here today and score it out conference against conference,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “It was a great meet today, I thought. We’re starting to build a little bit of momentum ourselves this outdoor season, and today really showed that with the way our athletes performed.”
Chase has earned All-America honors as an NCAA finalist in both the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles during her Lady Tiger career, and proved herself as an elite dual hurdler yet again with her performance.
The Canadian international first stepped onto the track for her outdoor debut in the 100 hurdles this spring and raced to a wind-aided time of 13.04 seconds (+2.9) to finish runner-up to compatriot Phylicia George with a winning run of 12.82w. Chase’s 13.04w was the fastest season opener of her career and tied her for the second-fastest sprint hurdle time among collegians this season under all conditions.
Chase didn’t stop there as she later broke Cassandra Tate’s Battle on the Bayou meet record with her seasonal-best run of 56.66 to win the women’s 400 hurdles and become the NCAA’s No. 3-ranked hurdler for 2016. She was more than three tenths of a second faster than Purdue’s Symone Black (56.98) in second place and teammate Payne (57.33) in third place overall.
Payne ran the fastest hurdle race of her career at 57.33 to eclipse her previous PR of 58.14 by more than eight tenths of a second and tie for No. 6 in the NCAA this season and rank No. 9 in school history in the event.
Schuetz was LSU’s first event champion crowned at this year’s Battle on the Bayou as she took down a top-class field in her season-opening race in the 1,500 meters before later placing third in the 800 meters.
An 800-meter runner by trade, Schuetz was impressive running the longer distance on Saturday afternoon as she took charge of the race and crossed the finish line with a time of 4 minutes, 24.14 seconds in her debut appearance in the event this season to edge Mississippi State’s standout steeplechaser Cornelia Griesche (4:25.73) by more than a second.
Schuetz pulled off an impressive double on Saturday afternoon when she returned to the track just over an hour later to win her heat of the 800 meters with the fifth-fastest time in the NCAA this season at 2:04.33 for third place overall. Schuetz won the second heat and was the No. 2 collegian in the field following LSU alumnae Charlene Lipsey (2:02.19) and Mississippi State’s Marta Freitas (2:04.16) from the first heat.
Freshman Dajour Braxton completed the sweep of 1,500-meter titles for LSU when he followed Schuetz by capturing his first collegiate victory in the event in the men’s event. Despite trailing Kansas State’s Lukas Koch by a distance with less than one lap to go, Braxton found a second gear and caught Koch (3:48.77) at the finish line with a winning personal best of 3:48.74.
Braxton smashed his previous 1,500-meter PR by nearly six seconds in his collegiate debut in the event after he signed with the Tigers from Centennial High School in Las Vegas with a best of 3:54.52.
Martin earned her first All-America honor in the 200-meter dash as a sophomore a year ago when she placed eighth nationally in the final at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. She took one step toward NCAA qualification once again at the Battle on the Bayou when she clocked 23.06 (+0.9) for a runner-up finish to Kansas State’s A’Keyla Mitchell (22.94) in the first section. Martin came away as the ninth-fastest 200-meter sprinter in the NCAA Division I ranks this season with her performance.
Martin led a host of Lady Tigers in the event with freshman Rachel Misher (23.17), junior Rushell Harvey (23.21) and junior Kiersten Duncan (23.28) each running personal bests in a 3-4-5 finish. Sophomore All-American Mikiah Brisco also raced to a personal best in the event with a wind-legal time of 23.52 (+2.0) in the second heat to finish ninth overall.
Harvey’s 23.21 for fourth place in her 200-meter heat marked her second personal best of the day as she was also crowned the meet’s 100-meter champion with her wind-legal PR of 11.33 (+1.4). She overcame a quick start by Brisco to take the tape in 11.33, while her teammate followed closely behind in second place with a season-opening time of 11.38 in the race.
With freshman Kortnei Johnson running the second leg, Harvey (first leg), Martin (third leg) and Brisco (anchor leg) kicked off the day’s events with a runner-up finish in the 4×100-meter relay as they teamed up to run 43.89 for second place behind Alabama’s 43.86 in the women’s event. LSU’s “B” team followed in third place overall in the women’s sprint relay final with a time of 44.17.
The Lady Tigers ended the meet with a victory in the women’s 4×400 relay as junior Travia Jones led off the team featuring Martin, Misher and Chase that beat Alabama (3:34.67) to the finish line with a winning time of 3:33.84. Jones warmed up for her appearance in the mile relay with a personal best in the 400 meters as she clocked 53.36 for fourth place overall.
The Tigers were themselves runners-up in the men’s 4×100-meter relay final when Mutanga combined with junior Jordan Moore, freshman Jaron Flournoy and junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake to run 39.59.
Mutanga later became one of the 10 fastest 100-meter sprinters in the NCAA this season when he crossed the finish line with a wind-legal PR of 10.29 (+1.2) for third place in the event. The Zimbabwe native finished in second among collegians as he followed fellow countryman and former Tiger All-American Gabriel Mvumvure (10.14) and Alabama’s Ahmed Ali (10.27) with the NCAA’s 10th-fastest time in 2016.
Two other Tigers finished as the top collegians in their events with Moore finishing second overall in the men’s 110-meter hurdles with a wind-aided time of 13.82 (+2.2) and fellow junior Blair Henderson was second in the men’s 800 meters with a season-opening time of 1:48.35 to rank No. 15 nationally in the event. Senior Fitzroy Dunkley clocked a wind-aided career best of 20.94 (+3.9) in the 200 meters and senior Cyril Grayson had a season-opening 46.70 in the 400 meters to win a pair of bronze medals for their team.
Ten other Tigers and Lady Tigers joined their teammates in setting new outdoor personal bests on the afternoon to help lead the SEC to a conference title sweep at the sixth-annual Battle on the Bayou.
Among them were senior David Collins (206-7) and sophomores Sidnie Wilder (181-9) and Marvalyn Vernon (162-6) in the hammer, senior Shanice Holmes (38-3 ¾) in the triple jump, junior Cameron Robichaux (16-8) in the pole vault, sophomores Jack Wilkes (1:49.77) and Keterra Harris (2:15.47) and freshman Tommy Brocato (1:55.93) in the 800, freshman DC Lipani (15:36.04) in the 5k and freshman Ross Quinlan (156-6) in the discus.
LSU’s athletes will make a return trip to the University of Texas in Austin next weekend to compete at the Texas Invitational being held on Saturday, April 16, at Mike A. Myers Stadium after competing at the 89th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays a week ago. They will then end their regular season with back-to-back home meets at the LSU Alumni Gold on April 23 and the LSU Invitational on April 30.