The Lady Tigers finished the 2016 season among the NCAA’s elite once again while scoring 31 points for a sixth-place finish nationally at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. In all, 10 Lady Tigers turned in All-American performances over the course of the campaign with their efforts at the NCAA Championships during the indoor and outdoor seasons.
The Lady Tigers will return 10 All-Americans to their squad in 2017 as LSU will once again challenge for top honors at the SEC and NCAA Championships. With a senior-laden squad featuring All-Americans Nataliyah Friar, Rushell Harvey, Travia Jones, Jada Martin, Morgan Schuetz and Rebekah Wales; along with juniors Mikiah Brisco and Aleia Hobbs and sophomores Kortnei Johnson and Rachel Misher, the Lady Tigers hope to make 2017 a season to remember in Baton Rouge.
Fifth in a nine-part series previews the women’s sprints and relays that will provide the firepower for a championship run during the 2017 season.
Women’s Sprints & Relays
The LSU women’s track and field team routinely lines up one of the deepest and most talented stables of sprinters in the collegiate ranks, and it looks to be more of the same in 2017 with seven All-Americans accounting for 17 All-America honors in their careers wearing the purple and gold again this spring.
Seniors Jada Martin, Rushell Harvey and Travia Jones; juniors Mikiah Brisco and Aleia Hobbs and sophomores Kortnei Johnson and Rachel Misher have each scored for the Lady Tigers at the NCAA Championships during their time in Baton Rouge as they look to join the trophy chase once again.
With their 4×100-meter relay team being crowned NCAA Champions, their 4×400-meter relay team placing fourth nationally and Brisco taking fifth in the NCAA 100-meter final, the Lady Tigers returned to the Top 10 for their efforts at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships a year ago while piling up a total of 31 points for sixth place in the team race.
Brisco also proved to be the catalyst for the Lady Tigers at the NCAA Indoor Championships as the NCAA Indoor Bronze Medalist in the 60-meter dash and fifth-place finisher in the 60-meter hurdles in 2016.
Double Duty
Brisco pulled double duty at the NCAA Championships for the first time in her career as a sophomore, and it paid big dividends for the Lady Tigers in the team standings as she lined up in three NCAA finals in her events that included the 60 meters and 60 hurdles indoors and 100 meters outdoors. She was also an NCAA semifinalist in the 100-meter hurdles during the outdoor season in 2016.
She saved her fastest races indoors for the NCAA Championships when she clocked her personal bests of 7.17 to win the bronze medal in the 60 meters and 8.04 for fifth place in the 60 hurdles to finish as LSU’s leading scorer with 10 points for the meet. That performance almost single-handedly earned the Lady Tigers a top-15 team finish for the indoor season.
Brisco burst onto the scene just two weeks before at the SEC Indoor Championships when she won the SEC’s Cliff Harper Trophy as the top individual point scorer while sweeping SEC Indoor titles in her events.
The Baton Rouge native made history as the first Lady Tiger to be crowned the SEC Champion in both the 60 meters and 60 hurdles in the same SEC Indoor Championship to tie Tennessee’s Chelsea Blaase as the leader for the meet with 20 points. Brisco was later voted by the head coaches as the SEC Women’s Indoor Runner of the Year as one of the SEC’s shining stars during the indoor season.
Brisco raised her performance again during the outdoor season in the spring when she lined up in the 100-meter final at the NCAA Championships for the first time and sprinted to her all-conditions career best of 11.13 (+2.6) for fifth place nationally. That came just two days after clocking a wind-legal PR of 11.24 in the national semifinal.
Brisco ran her two fastest wind-legal races in the 100-meter hurdles at the SEC Outdoor Championships as she followed a personal best of 13.10 in the semifinal round with a time of 13.11 for fourth place to miss out on an All-SEC finish by one spot in the standings. She added an eighth-place individual finish in the 100-meter final at the SEC Outdoor Championships to finish among the team’s leading scorers.
A six-time All-American and four-time All-SEC performer as a Lady Tiger, Brisco is sure to be a catalyst once again if they Lady Tigers are to challenge for SEC and NCAA team championships during the 2017 season.
Last Hurrah
The 2017 season will be the final campaign for three members of LSU’s sprint team as Martin, Harvey and Jones compete for the final time while looking to lead the Lady Tigers into title contention at the SEC and NCAA championships.
Four times an All-American since joining the program from Martin Luther King, Jr. High School in Lithonia, Georgia, Martin is one of the most decorated Lady Tigers returning this season as she lines up with career-bests of 7.32 in the 60 meters, 11.24w/11.34 in the 100 meters and 22.92 indoors and 22.41w/22.60 outdoors in the 200 meters.
Martin has been one of the NCAA’s leading 200-meter sprinters throughout her collegiate career, including earning All-America honors with an eighth-place NCAA finish as a sophomore in 2015 with her performance at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She was also an NCAA quarterfinalist in the 200 meters as a freshman in 2014 and an NCAA semifinalist as a junior last spring.
Harvey is in search of her first career NCAA finals appearance in an individual event after twice advancing to the national semifinals of the 100-meter dash during the 2014 and 2016 seasons. Also an NCAA quarterfinalist in the 200 meters a year ago, Harvey has run personal bests of 7.32 in the 60 meters, 11.26w/11.33 in the 100 meters and 23.43 indoors and 23.12w/23.21 outdoors in the 200 meters.
Jones enjoyed her best collegiate season running the 400 meters as a junior in 2016 while advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals in her debut appearance in the event at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds. An SEC finalist in the 400 meters during the 2015 outdoor season, Jones set personal bests of 53.40 indoors and 53.08 outdoors as a junior in 2016.
Bouncing Back
Hobbs is one Lady Tiger who will look to bounce back from an injury-plagued 2016 season when she was limited in her performance during both the indoor and outdoor seasons. While posting seasonal bests of 7.40 for the 60 meters and 11.34 for the 100 meters, she placed 12th in qualifying in both events at the SEC Championships while also lining up in the NCAA quarterfinals in the 100 meters during the outdoor season.
A native of New Orleans and product of Eleanor McMain High School, Hobbs emerged as one of the NCAA’s top young talents as a freshman in 2015 while earning two All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor meet. In the 100-meter dash, Hobbs followed a PR of 11.13 in the semifinal round with a wind-aided run of 11.16 in the final to place sixth nationally at the NCAA Championships.
Hobbs also ran the second leg of the Lady Tigers’ 4×100-meter relay team that was fifth in the NCAA final in the 2015 season. She did not feature in LSU’s sprint relay lineup in the championship season last spring.
Super Sophs
Johnson and Misher were both welcomed additions to the women’s squad a season ago as they proved to be two of the top freshmen in the SEC and NCAA ranks with their performance outdoors last spring.
Johnson, who signed with the Lady Tigers from Italy (Texas) High School in the Class of 2015, emerged on the national stage at the SEC Outdoor Championships at the University of Alabama last May where she finished as the SEC Outdoor Silver Medalist in the 100-meter dash and was the fourth-place finisher in the 200-meter dash.
Johnson was just one one-hundredth of a second shy of Florida’s Shayla Sanders (11.28) in the SEC’s 100-meter final with a wind-legal time of 11.29 to earn All-SEC honors in the event. She followed by sprinting to a PR of 22.78 (+1.9) for fourth place in the 200-meter final at the SEC Championships and solidifying her NCAA qualification in both sprint events.
An NCAA semifinalist in both the 100 and 200 meters and member of LSU’s NCAA Champion 4×100-meter relay team, Johnson ended her freshman season with seasonal best times of 11.17 wind-aided and 11.27 wind-legal in the 100 meters and 22.67 wind-aided in the 200 meters.
Misher enjoyed a breakout performance at the SEC Outdoor Championships herself as she ran 53.08 in qualifying and a personal best of 52.98 for eighth place in the final in her only two 400-meter races of the outdoor season. She elected to run the 200 meters in NCAA competition while finishing the season with a wind-aided best of 22.94 and wind-legal best of 23.17 in the event.
A Baton Rouge native and Episcopal High School product, Misher capped her freshman season by earning All-America honors as the leadoff leg of LSU’s 4×400-meter relay team that placed fourth at the NCAA meet.
Defending Champions
LSU finds itself in the unique position in 2017 of returning all four legs on both NCAA Champion 4×100-meter relay teams from last spring as Brisco, Johnson, Martin and Harvey are all back to defend their women’s title along with Jaron Flournoy, Renard Howell, Tremayne Acy and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake on the men’s side.
The Lady Tigers shattered the Hayward Field stadium record at the University of Oregon with their title-winning seasonal best of 42.65 in the NCAA final to become the 11th-fastest sprint relay team in collegiate history. It dropped their previous seasonal best of 42.77 set in being crowned SEC Champions in the event as the most dominant 4×100-meter relay of 2016.
Not only do the Lady Tigers return all four legs from their 14th NCAA-title-winning relay team, but they boast more relay depth than any team in the country with the likes of Hobbs, Misher and freshman Cassondra Hall all looking to earn their way in the lineup during the outdoor season.
A product of Warner Robins High School in Eastman, Georgia, Hall was one of the nation’s top sprint recruits to sign a National Letter of Intent in the Class of 2016 with personal-best times of 7.39 in the 60 meters, 11.39 in the 100 meters and 23.24 in the 200 meters to her credit. Hall’s prep career was highlighted by winning seven Class 5A state titles in the state of Georgia and being crowned the USA Track & Field Junior Olympics Champion in both the 100 and 200 meters during the 2015 outdoor season.
NCAA Finalists
The Lady Tigers also picked up five big points in the final event of the NCAA Outdoor Championships last June when they crossed the finish line fourth overall in the 4×400-meter relay with a seasonal best of 3 minutes, 29.82 seconds. That’s after running 3:29.91 at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds and 3:32.24 in the national semifinals at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Despite anchor leg Chanice Chase moving on to a professional career following a decorated senior season in 2016, the Lady Tigers will return their first three legs from their championship lineup with Misher, Martin and Jones ready to lead the team back to the NCAA final during the indoor and outdoor seasons.
Among those looking to claim their spot in the lineup with Chase’s departure are senior Christian Brennan with a lifetime best of 52.12 in the 400 meters and sophomore Oksana Lawrence with a top time of 53.61 in the event. Also in LSU’s 4×400-meter relay pool will be 400-meter hurdlers Ka’Lynn Jupiter, Kymber Payne and Bryiana Richardson.