BATON ROUGE – Not even a nearly four-hour weather delay could slow down the LSU Track & Field teams in their regular-season finale as the Tigers dropped their NCAA-leading time in the 4×100-meter relay and the teams combined for six NCAA Top 10s and seven event wins at Saturday’s LSU Invitational at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
LSU’s athletes also combined for 14 personal-best performances in their final appearance on their home track this season before they line up at the SEC Outdoor Track & Field Championships in two weeks.
The second-annual event featured many of the nation’s top teams as No. 1-ranked Texas A&M took home the men’s team title with 171 points and No. 2-ranked Kentucky topped the charts on the women’s side with 125 points on the afternoon. The Lady Tigers were close behind with 119 points for second place on the women’s side, while the Tigers placed third in the men’s team race with 134 points.
Alabama finished runner-up to Texas A&M with 154 points in the men’s standings followed by Arkansas (97.5) in fourth, Florida (56) in fifth, Miami (53) in sixth and Kentucky (48.5) in seventh. Rounding out the field for the women’s team title were Alabama (118.5) in third, Texas A&M (115.5) in fourth, Florida (100) in fifth, Arkansas (89) in sixth and Miami (9) in seventh.
The Tigers crossed the finish line in the men’s 4×100-meter relay with an NCAA-leading time for the third-straight week as they followed their 38.95 at the Texas Invitational on April 16 and 38.94 at the LSU Alumni Gold last week with a seasonal-best time of 38.93 to finish as the top collegians in Saturday’s field. Athletics Canada came from behind on the anchor leg to win it in 38.92.
Head coach Dennis Shaver selected a lineup of freshman Jaron Flournoy, junior Renard Howell, junior Tremayne Acy and junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake for the first time this season, and the team responded with the fastest sprint relay by a collegiate team this season at 38.93. Arkansas followed well back in third place overall at 39.38.
The Lady Tigers were also impressive in winning the women’s 4×100-meter relay with a seasonal best of their own against a field that featured each of the teams ranked Nos. 2-5 in the NCAA for the 2016 season.
With a team featuring sophomore Mikiah Brisco, freshman Kortnei Johnson, junior Jada Martin and sophomore Aleia Hobbs, the Lady Tigers edged Texas A&M at the finish line by one one-thousandths of a second for the win with a seasonal-best time of 43.20. LSU’s 43.193 beat Texas A&M’s 43.194 for the win, while Kentucky (43.33) and Florida (43.37) followed in third and fourth place, respectively.
“We were a bit unsure with the weather maybe at first, but we’re glad to have gotten the opportunity to run those relays here before we go to the SEC meet in a couple of weeks,” Shaver said. “The men looked good. Renard ran the second leg for us for the first time, and did a nice job. Canada has a good sprint group and caught us there at the end. We’re starting to figure out the exchanges with the women, but I thought they had a good run today overall. Still some work to be done with both teams, but we’re getting there.”
Not only did they run the first two legs on LSU’s sprint relay earlier in the day, but Flournoy led off and Howell ran the third leg of the Tigers’ winning 4×400-meter relay in the final event of the meet as they joined with junior Michael Cherry on the second leg and senior Fitzroy Dunkley on the anchor leg to take the title in 3 minutes, 3.25 seconds.
The Tigers crossed the finish line more than four seconds ahead of Texas A&M in the 4×400-meter relay final as the Aggies lined up two teams that finished second in 3:07.49 and third in 3:09.54. Miami followed both in fourth place at 3:09.96, while Kentucky (3:11.27) and Alabama (3:23.41) rounded out the field in the men’s relay.
Moments after the Tigers and Lady Tigers ran seasonal-best times in the 4×100-meter relay, juniors Morgan Schuetz and Blair Henderson swept 1,500-meter titles for the home team with new personal bests.
Schuetz led from the gun in the women’s event as she became the fifth-fastest Lady Tiger to ever run the 1,500 meters with a winning time of 4 minutes, 20.21 seconds, breaking her previous best of 4:22.83 going into the meet. Florida’s Elisabeth Bergh trailed in second place with a time of 4:22.00, followed by Alabama’s Meropi Panagiotou in third place at 4:24.64.
Henderson completed the sweep in the next event when he overtook Texas A&M’s Alex Riba (3:45.79) on the homestretch with a winning time of 3:45.20 to eclipse his previous PR of 3:46.48 in the 1,500 meters. Tiger freshman Dajour Braxton slashed two seconds off of his personal best with a run of 3:46.04 for third place overall.
Henderson later returned to the track to double in the men’s 800 meters and responded with a seasonal best of 1:47.30 in the event for third place overall and second place among collegians in the field.
That momentum was carried into the sprint hurdles as junior Jordan Moore captured LSU’s fifth event title of the day with a comfortable victory in the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Running his first hurdle race since LSU’s Battle on the Bayou meet three weeks ago, Moore moved into the Top 10 of the national rankings with a seasonal best of 13.67 (+0.9) for the 10th-fastest time among collegians in 2016.
Moore was quick out of the blocks and ran a fairly clean race as he edged former Texas Tech All-American Omo Osaghae (13.71) at the line for the win with Arkansas’ Davon Anderson following in third place overall and second in the collegiate field. Moore’s 13.67 was one one-hundredth of a second faster than his previous seasonal best of 13.68 from his opener at Miami’s Hurricane Twilight back on March 25.
Two Lady Tigers later ran their fastest hurdle races of the 2016 season in the 400-meter distance when senior Chanice Chase and sophomore Kymber Payne both set personal bests to rank among the NCAA leaders for the year. Chase became the NCAA’s No. 6-ranked hurdler with a lifetime best of 55.76 for third place, while Payne finished just outside the NCAA’s Top 10 in the No. 11 spot with a best of 56.54 for fourth place.
Texas A&M’s World Championship Silver Medalist Shamier Little (55.14) outlasted Kentucky’s Kiah Seymour (55.20) to the tape for the win with Chase and Payne both rounding out the Top 4 places in the event.
The heats of the women’s 100-meter dash also produced two of the nation’s fastest times this season by Lady Tigers as freshman Kortnei Johnson and junior Rushell Harvey both sprinted the fastest wind-aided times of the season and their careers to finish in third place and fifth place, respectively.
Johnson clocked a windy 11.13 to finish behind Kentucky’s Destiny Carter (11.11w) and Kianna Gray (11.12w) with the fifth-fastest time on the NCAA’s performance list under all conditions this season, while Harvey ran a wind-aided career-best of 11.26 for the 15th-fastest time nationally under all conditions in their final races before the championship season.
Cyril Grayson was among 15 seniors making their final appearance in an LSU uniform at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium on Saturday, and he saved his best 400-meter race for last by slashing more than three tenths of a second off of his previous personal best and breaking 46 seconds for the first time in his career with a time of 45.91 to finish as the top collegian. Grayson moved into the Top 15 of the NCAA rankings with his effort as he trailed unattached Latoy Williams (45.88) with the 14th-fastest time in the country.
“This is our final tune up. I felt like the people we wanted to try to get some things done with today, we were able to get that done,” Shaver said. “Last weekend, I think we got a lot of things done with a lot of people. So, this was a weekend to see who are going to make that team that goes to SECs and who can give themselves that opportunity to go to the preliminary rounds of the NCAA Championships.”
One of the longstanding relay records at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium fell for the second-straight week when the Lady Tigers broke their own 30-year-old stadium record in the women’s shuttle hurdle relay with an impressive 53.21 to take the title ahead of Arkansas (54.78) in second place. The Miami Hurricanes did not finish the race.
Running with a foursome of sophomore Danielle Phillips, sophomore Mikiah Brisco, Chase and sophomore Daeshon Gordon, the Lady Tigers erased their previous stadium record of 56.34 in 1986 from the record books with the fourth-fastest time in school history. Action on the track was then delayed for the next three and a half hours until 3:05 p.m. CT with lightning and thunderstorms in the area.
Their record-setting performance came just one week after the Tigers broke UCLA’s 29-year-old Bernie Moore Track Stadium record in the men’s 4×400-meter relay with their NCAA-leading time of 3:00.38.
Both high jump and pole vault competitions were moved indoors to the Carl Maddox Field House during the lengthy weather delay where Lady Tiger senior Shanice Hall was crowned the women’s high jump champion on Senior Day with a seasonal-best clearance of 5 feet, 10 inches. She won her first high jump title of the outdoor season with fewer misses than Alabama’s Claire Orcel and Stacey Destin, who also cleared 5-10 to claim second and third place. Hall sealed her spot in the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds with her seasonal best.
Also setting a seasonal best in the field events before weather delayed proceedings was Tiger junior Johnnie Jackson, who matched his personal best with a throw of 174-2 for sixth place overall in the men’s discus.
Other LSU athletes setting personal bests during Saturday’s invitational were sophomore Jenna Walker (18:20.58) and freshmen DC Lipani (15:13.98), Daniel Tanner (15:33.80), Hannah Bourque (18:41.52) and Monica Guillot (19:30.68) all in the 5,000 meters; junior Christian Johnson with a time of 9:15.74 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase; sophomore Jack Wilkes with his run of 1:49.40 in the 800 meters; and freshman Madison Danna with a throw of 136-11 in the hammer throw.
With the regular season now in the books, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will take next weekend off before traveling to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in two weeks for the 2016 SEC Outdoor Track & Field Championships running at the University of Alabama’s Sam Bailey Stadium from May 12-14. The NCAA East Preliminary Rounds will follow May 26-28 at North Florida’s Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville.