BATON ROUGE – In the return of the Track & Field News Collegiate Dual Meet Rankings for the 2013 indoor and outdoor season, the Lady Tigers have wrapped up the regular season with a perfect 7-0 record in scored competitions to claim this year’s dual meet national championship as announced with Wednesday’s publication.
The Lady Tigers have captured their second dual meet national championship in program history and their first since the 1987 season when they also won their first NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor team titles.
Among LSU’s seven dual-meet victories during the 2013 season are five wins over team wrapping up the year in the final Top 10 of the Track & Field News Women’s Collegiate Dual Meet Rankings, including No. 2 Texas A&M, No. 4 Arkansas, No. 6 Penn State, No. 7 Arizona State and No. 8 UCLA. The Lady Tigers also scored victories over No. 21 TCU and unranked Mississippi State.
In their only scored meet of the indoor season, the Lady Tigers piled up 107.5 points to defeat Texas A&M (103.5) and Arkansas (103) at the Texas A&M Triangular meet held in College Station on Jan. 19.
They then made a clean sweep of two scored meets during the outdoor season with a 92-70 win over UCLA and 111-42 win over TCU at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational in Los Angeles on April 6 and a score of 188 points to defeat Penn State (139), Arizona State (134) and Mississippi State (96) at the third-annual Battle on the Bayou at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium in Baton Rouge on April 13.
In addition, four Lady Tigers have been honored for their performance with a selection to this year’s Track & Field News All-Dual Meet Team as announced by the publication on Tuesday.
Junior Natoya Goule is one of six athletes to set a dual-meet collegiate record this season when she took home the 800-meter title at UCLA’s Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational with a season-opening run of 2 minutes, 1.18 seconds, breaking the previous collegiate dual-meet mark of 2:01.65 set in 2004 by Wisconsin’s Amy Wickus.
Goule, who is the 2013 world leader at 800 meters with a seasonal-best time of 2:00.76, was selected to the All-Dual Meet Team for her performance in the 400 meters, 800 meters and 4×400-meter relay.
Senior Charlene Lipsey joined Goule with her selection to the All-Dual Meet Team in the 800 meters as well as the 1,500 meters, while two-time defending NCAA Outdoor 200-meter champion Kimberlyn Duncan was a selection in the 200 meters and 4×100-meter relay and senior Laura Carleton was chosen in the 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters and 5,000 meters as one of the NCAA’s top distance runners for 2013.
Track & Field News Final Women’s College Dual Meet Rankings
Team (Dual Meet Record) Last Week
1. LSU (7-0) 1
2. Texas A&M (4-1) 2
3. Oregon (2-1) 3
4. Arkansas (0-2) 4
5. Arizona (2-0) 5
6. Penn State (2-1) 7
7. Arizona State (2-3) 8
8. UCLA (2-1) 10
9. Stanford (1-0) 9
10. Kansas (2-0) 6
11. Michigan (3-0) 11
12. Southern California (0-1) 13
13. Notre Dame (3-0) 14
14. Michigan State (2-2) 16
15. California (1-2) 12
16. Washington State (1-3) 17
17. Washington (1-3) 15
18. Nebraska (2-0) 18
19. South Florida (3-2) 19
20. Indiana State (4-0) 22
21. TCU (0-2) 20
22. Kent State (1-0) 21
23. Kansas State (3-0) 23
24. Virginia (0-2) NR
25. Alabama (1-1) NR