NEW ORLEANS – The USTFCCCA released their women’s Post-Outdoor Conference Championships edition of The Bowerman Watch List Wednesday afternoon. Senior Alia Armstrong makes her way back onto the list, while sophomore Michaela Rose makes her career debut after receiving votes a majority of the season.
Rose is now the third LSU Tiger to make the prestigious watch list, joining Armstrong and Favour Ofili who both have been listed at least once this year. The sophomore was previously receiving votes for the watch list in four of the five previous 2023 editions.
Suffolk, Va.’s own, Michaela Rose, has been on a terror from the start in 2023. This past weekend at the SEC Outdoor Championships she claimed her second 800-meter SEC title of the season with a dominating time of 1:59.73 (four seconds ahead of the second-place finisher). She is the only athlete this season to go sub-2 minutes, doing so one other time this season with an NCAA No. 2 all-time 1:59.08.
So far this year, Rose has a world-leading seven sub-2:02 800’s. She also has helped set five LSU records, ran eight top-10 LSU all-time performances, and clocked five top-10 NCAA all-time performances.
Returning to the watch list this week is New Orleans’ own Alia Armstrong. After missing a majority of the indoor season due to a nagging injury, Armstrong fell off of the watch list after the preseason edition came out.
This past weekend Armstrong woke the nation back up after running the nation lead and collegiate all-condition’s record time of 12.31 seconds (+2.2 m/s) in the SEC prelims. On Saturday in the final, with what will most likely be the NCAA Championship preview, Armstrong clocked a legal PR of 12.40 seconds (+0.4 m/s) to win against two other Bowerman Watch List members (Masai Russel, Kentucky; Ackera Nugent, Arkansas). Her time of 12.40 makes her the LSU record holder now, beating out former teammate Tonea Marshall who held the record of 12.44 seconds previously.
Armstrong was also the first leg of the SEC title winning 4×100 team that clocked a time of 42.92 seconds. This marked the second meet in-a-row that the team of Armstrong, Ofili, Brianna Lyston, and Thelma Davies were able to hand the baton off to each other. The time of 42.92 puts LSU’s A team at fourth in the nation now.
Altogether, the duo of Armstrong and Rose have set six LSU records this season, hold two nation leads, and claimed three gold medals at the SEC Championships this past weekend in Baton Rouge.
The men’s edition of The Bowerman Mid-Outdoor Watch List will be released tomorrow at 3 p.m. CT.
For more about The Bowerman, visit ustfccca.org.
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