BATON ROUGE — Peta-Gaye Dowdie of the national champion LSU women’s track and field team has been named Southeastern Conference Outdoor Track and Field Female Athlete of the Year, as voted upon by the league’s coaches.
Dowdie, the first Lady Tiger to win the award since D’Andre Hill in 1996, recently helped the Lady Tigers to their 12th NCAA team title in the last 14 years. The senior from St. Catherine, Jamaica won the 200-meter dash, finished second in the 100-meter dash, anchored the Lady Tigers’ 4×100-meter relay team to a second place finish and ran the second leg on the 4×400-meter relay team that finished seventh.
With better-than 20 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Dowdie was the high point scorer in the meet on the women’s side. Her showing at the NCAA meet came shortly after a tremendous SEC Outdoor Championship performance in which she won the 100-meter dash, finished second in the 200 and anchored the Lady Tigers’ short relay to its fifth straight title.
Dowdie’s NCAA 200-meter-winning time of 22.51 seconds ranks third in the world in 2000. Dowdie concluded her career as a 19-time All-American, the second highest total in school history.
Gabor Mate of Auburn, who shattered the NCAA record in the discus, won the honor in the men’s category.
John McDonnell took home the SEC Men’s Coach of the Year honor, while Lance Harter of Arkansas was selected as the SEC Women’s Coach of the Year. Pierre Browne of Mississippi State and Stephen Harris of Tennessee shared the SEC Male Freshman of the Year award, while Shelly-Anne Gallimore won the SEC Female Freshman of the Year.