AUSTIN, Texas – LSU’s athletes were among the stars of Saturday’s finale at the 89th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays as the Tigers blitzed the field with an NCAA-leading time in the 4×400-meter relay and the Lady Tigers completed a sprint relay double with impressive wins in the 4×100-meter and 4×200-meter relays at Mike A. Myers Stadium.
The Tigers have dominated the 4×400 relay in recent years as NCAA Champions in the event outdoors in 2015 and indoors in 2016, and they established themselves among the early-season contenders to repeat as the NCAA Outdoor Championships with a national-leading time of 3 minutes, 1.83 seconds on Saturday.
The Lady Tigers were also impressive in winning the women’s 4×100 relay with the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked time at 43.25 seconds and the women’s 4×200 relay with a national-leading 1:31.30 on the meet’s final day.
Junior All-American Nataliyah Friar added to LSU’s trophy haul on the meet’s final day with a victory in the women’s university long jump with a season-opening jump of 20 feet, 8 ½ inches on her first attempt. She had two top-five performances in the NCAA on the weekend after also jumping 42-6 in her season-opening appearance in the triple jump on Friday.
With four wins on Saturday afternoon, the Tigers and Lady Tigers added to their all-time tally with 153 event wins at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays with 77 relay titles and 76 individual titles in the meet’s history.
“I’m proud of the way we ended the meet,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “It’s early in the season, so we were a little bit careful yesterday with some of the weather issues we faced during the day and how cold it got later in the evening. I thought we came back and competed really well today. Both our teams made their mark a little bit on this meet, and it gives us a foundation going forward this season.”
The Tigers certainly saved their best for last in the final event of this year’s Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays as they won the Cleburne Price, Jr. Men’s 4×400-Meter Relay for the seventh time in meet history. They did so in impressive fashion with an NCAA-leading run of 3:01.83 to edge the homestanding Texas Longhorns (3:02.18) for the victory.
LSU ran second for much of the race as junior LaMar Bruton (46.95), senior Fitzroy Dunkley (44.66) and senior Cyril Grayson (46.01) put the team in position with junior Michael Cherry chasing Texas’ Zack Bilderback just a few meters back at the second exchange. Cherry made his move with 250 meters to go as he surged past the NCAA Indoor 400-meter champion and held on for the win with the NCAA’s fastest time in 2016.
Cherry brought the baton home with a 44.20-second anchor leg to give the Tigers their first win in the Cleburne Price, Jr. Men’s 4×400-Meter Relay for the first time since the 85th running of the meet in 2012. Their time of 3:01.83 was the ninth-fastest in school history and the fastest ever run by an LSU team at the Texas Relays.
The Lady Tigers also ended the meet with a seasonal-best performance in the event when junior Travia Jones, junior Jada Martin, freshman Rachel Misher and senior Chanice Chase teamed to clock 3:33.69 and claim a sixth-place finish in the Sanya Richards-Ross Women’s 4×400-Meter Relay Final.
LSU’s athletes lined up in their first relay finals of the day in the university 4×200-meter relays and turned in two of the 10 fastest times in school history with their performance in Saturday’s opener.
The Lady Tigers scored the team’s first relay title of the 89th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays with a dominant victory in the women’s 4×200-meter relay final as junior Rushell Harvey, freshman Kortnei Johnson, Misher and Martin brought the baton around the track with the 10th-fastest time in school history at 1:31.30.
The Lady Tigers, running in lane No. 5, were locked in a tight battle with Texas in lane No. 4 and Texas A&M in lane No. 6 at the second exchange, but a missed handoff by the Aggies paved the way for a race to the line between LSU and the homestanding Longhorns. With Texas struggling to find the handoff at the final exchange, Martin connected with Misher for a clean pass and stormed to the line in 1:31.30 for the win.
Texas followed well back in second place in the end with a time of 1:32.60, while Purdue trailed in third at 1:33.34, Texas A&M-Kingsville followed in fourth at 1:36.01 and Texas-San Antonio rounded out the Top 5 in the fifth spot at 1:36.83. Texas A&M-Kingsville and Texas-San Antonio finished 1-2 in the first heat before the Lady Tigers took the tape in the second.
LSU captured their ninth Texas Relays title all-time in the women’s 4×200-meter relay and their first since back-to-back wins in 2011 and 2012. It also marked the team’s 75th relay title all-time at the Texas Relays.
LSU’s women made it a sprint relay double just over an hour later when Harvey (first leg), Johnson (second leg) and Martin (third leg) returned to the track with sophomore Mikiah Brisco on the anchor leg as a favorite in the Carlette Guidry Women’s 4×100-Meter Relay Final. They were drawn in lane No. 5 in the final as the top seed from Friday’s qualifying round with a prelim time of 44.16 seconds.
The Lady Tigers lived up to their billing as favorites and took the tape with the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked time at 43.25 as Brisco held off a charging Aaliyah Brown running the anchor leg for Texas A&M to hand LSU the win. The Aggie women finished runner-up with a seasonal-best time of their own at 43.29 as the SEC rivals produced the NCAA’s No. 2 and No. 3 times this season in the race. Also breaking 44 seconds with seasonal bests in the final were Purdue in third place at 43.66 and Baylor in fourth place at 43.91.
Like their win in the 4×200-meter relay, the Lady Tigers captured their first Texas Relays 4×100-meter relay title since the 2012 season with their 11th win in the event all-time at the University of Texas.
The Tigers were the first to step onto the Mike A. Myers Stadium track for Saturday’s finale while lining up in the men’s 4×200-meter relay final where they raced to a runner-up finish behind Texas A&M with the sixth-fastest time in school history at 1:21.14. Junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake made up what seemed to be an insurmountable lead by Texas A&M’s Devin Jenkins at the final exchange, only to be beaten to the line by three one-hundredths of a second in the end. Also running for the Tigers were Dunkley, junior Tinashe Mutanga and freshman Jaron Flournoy.
After qualifying third with a time of 40.34 in Friday’s prelims, the Tigers did not finish the final of the Clyde Littlefield Men’s 4×100-Meter Relay final as Flournoy missed the first exchange with junior Jordan Moore.
“The relays are what really highlight the final day of this meet, and I thought we showed a little bit of what we can do with how we performed today,” Shaver said. “It’s still so early in the season, so there’s some things we know we have to work on to run the way we know we can run over the course of the season. We certainly learned a lot this weekend.”
Just one day after she cracked the NCAA’s Top 5 at No. 5 with a season-opening 42-6 in the triple jump, Friar posted the nation’s No. 3-ranked long jump mark on her very first attempt as she hit the board and jumped a wind-legal 20-8 ½ (+0.6) to grab a lead she would not relinquish over the final five rounds. She finished more than five inches clear of Louisiana Tech’s Mia Adams (20-3) in second place for the victory.
It marked the third time in history and the second time in three years for a Lady Tiger to be crowned the Texas Relays Champion in the women’s long jump after Keri Emanuel was the last to do so in 2014.
Despite battling through a series of injuries toward the end of her indoor season, Friar was outstanding on her season-opening weekend in both jumping events while emerging among the NCAA’s Top 5 performers in the long jump and triple jump. The top-ranked Lady Tigers will look to her performance in the field events with their eye on a national championship in June.
“I’m happy that I was able to open up with a couple of solid jumps. I know bigger jumps are coming soon,” Friar said of her performance at the Texas Relays. “I am just blessed that I was able to open up and take 12 full jumps without any pain and at least start out the (outdoor) season with some good, solid jumps. That’s what we were hoping for coming here.”
Lady Tiger senior Shanice Hall raised her seasonal best in the high jump to 5-8 ½ to tie for third place in the women’s university division in her final Texas Relays appearance. Hall followed a first-attempt clearance at the opening height of 5-6 ½ with a first-attempt clearance of 5-8 ½ before going out of the competition with three misses at 5-10 ½.
Hall tied Clemson’s Mimi Lamb for third place in the competition, while unattached athlete Rachel McCoy cleared 6-4 to win the event title followed by Akron’s Claudia Garcia Jou in second place overall at 6-1 ¼.
Freshman Dajour Braxton also saw action during Saturday’s meet final when he lined up in the Jerry Thompson Men’s Invitational Mile, crossing the finish line in eighth place overall with a time of 4:08.41. UTEP’s Jonah Koech nearly broke the four-minute mark in victory as he clocked 4:00.82 to beat Texas’ Alex Rogers (4:01.11) to the line.
With the 2016 outdoor season now off and running, LSU Track & Field returns home next weekend to play host to the first of three home meets in the month of April with the sixth-annual Battle on the Bayou meet on April 9 at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium. The teams will then return to Austin for the Texas Invitational scheduled to run April 16 back here at Mike A. Myers Stadium.