BATON ROUGE – Following a week of fan voting, LSU’s senior middle distance runner Morgan Schuetz was elected Tuesday as the HERO Sports NCAA Division I Women’s Track & Field HERO of the Week after lighting up the Bernie Moore Stadium track with a big personal best in the 800 meters at the team’s recent LSU Alumni Gold meet.
Schuetz slashed nearly one full second from her previous best with a time of 2 minutes, 2.29 seconds to finish as the top collegian in the field with one of the NCAA’s fastest times during the 2016 season.
Schuetz emerged from the LSU Alumni Gold on April 16 as the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked 800-meter runner this spring before dropping into the No. 3 spot on the national list after last weekend’s action behind the Stanford standout Olivia Baker (2:01.02) and Oklahoma State All-American Kaela Edwards (2:01.97). It is also the SEC’s No. 1-ranked time by nearly one second as she leads Kentucky’s Ariah Graham (2:03.24).
.@morganlayne3‘s fans voted like crazy & now she’s HERO of the week! Congrats! pic.twitter.com/gqhUs6zqpG
— HERO Sports (@HeroSportsNews) May 3, 2016
A junior from Baton Rouge, Schuetz lined up at the LSU Alumni Gold with a previous personal best of 2:03.12 she set during her sophomore season in 2015. She became the fifth-fastest Lady Tiger in history to ever race the 800 meters outdoors with her lifetime best of 2:02.29 set nearly two weeks ago.
It also marked the first time in the qualifying period for Schuetz to achieve the 2:03.00 standard required to compete at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials coming up this summer at Oregon’s Hayward Field.
Schuetz won the online fan vote in a landslide while receiving 78.23 percent of the 294 votes cast over the last week to easily claim the title of HERO Sports NCAA Division I Women’s Track & Field HERO of the Week this week. It was a vote that also featured the likes of Texas teammates Morolake Akinosun and Courtney Okolo, Wisconsin’s Kelsey Card, Duke’s Megan Clark, Georgetown’s Katrina Coogan, Arkansas’ Taylor Ellis-Watson, Mississippi State’s Marta Freitas, Akron’s Claudia Garcia Jou and Arizona’s Nnenya Hailey.