BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field teams will wrap up the regular season this weekend as they travel to Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday to compete in the 113th running of the Penn Relays hosted by the University of Pennsylvania at Franklin Field.
Thursday’s action is scheduled to get underway at 9 a.m. CDT with the women’s 400-meter hurdles and the women’s high jump. The three-day meet will come to an end Saturday with the running of the men’s 4×400-meter relay at 4:45 p.m.
“We always look forward to coming back and competing in this meet every year,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “It’s a really exciting carnival atmosphere, and it’s something that you have to experience. It’s exciting for our athletes because they’ll have a chance to compete in front of close to 50,000 people this weekend.”
The Penn Relays will feature perhaps the most impressive field in collegiate track and field outside of the NCAA Outdoor Championships as a total of 28 teams enter the meet ranked in the latest Trackwire 25 power rankings.
The Lady Tigers enter the meet as the nation’s top-ranked squad as they replaced Arizona State in the No. 1 spot in this week’s Trackwire 25, while the Tigers also boast their highest ranking of the outdoor season as they jumped three spots to No. 2 in the country.
In all, the squads have combined to win a total of 47 Championship of America relay titles and 44 individual event titles in the meet’s illustrious history.
LSU looks to continue its success from a year ago in which the teams tied a meet record by combining to win five Championship of America relay titles. The men swept sprint relay titles in the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400-meter relays, while the women added titles in the 4×200 relay and shuttle hurdle relay.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers became just the second program in the 113-year history of the relay carnival to record five relay victories in one year as they joined Villanova, which has equaled that feat four times with its last coming in 1978.
The men are now the two-time defending champions in the 4×100 relay and have won 14 relay titles all-time, while the women have added 33 titles of their own as they have won the 4×200 title in five of the last six years and the shuttle hurdle relay in three of the last four years.
“We’re going to continue to try and develop some depth in our relay teams as we prepare for the championship season,” Shaver said. “That’s something that will be important for the success of our teams as we get ready for the SEC and NCAA meets.”
In addition, junior Kelly Baptiste became the first Lady Tiger to be named College Women’s Athlete of the Meet for Individual Events for her performance in the 100-meter dash. She held off Marshavet Hooker of Texas for the individual title a year ago as she clocked a blistering time of 11.10 seconds in the event finals.
Baptiste is in a select group of Lady Tiger standouts who have enjoyed great success at the Penn Relays as former LSU greats Cheryl Taplin (1994), D’Andre Hill (1996) and Muna Lee (2003) have been recognized as the meet’s Most Outstanding Female Relay Runner for their efforts.
After returning to Baton Rouge, the squads will break for finals before returning to the track with the beginning of the championship season as they are set to compete in the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Tuscaloosa, Ala., from May 10-13.