BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU track and field team opened up day one of the Battle on the Bayou on Friday, hosted at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium in Baton Rouge. The Tigers also sent one distance member to the Raleigh Relays on Friday to compete in the 10k.
Friday ended with a bang as the lone runner at the Raleigh Relays, Ella Chesnut, erased the previous LSU 10,000-meter record that stood 11 years untouched. The sophomore clocked a time of 32:46.56 to finish eight overall in the 10k invitational. Her time took well over a minute off of the previous record of 34:01.65, which was set by Laura Carleton in 2013. This is Chesnut’s second-program record, also holding the indoor 5000-meter record of 16:08.34 from earlier this year.
There were many exciting races throughout day one of the Battle on the Bayou, but the first to get the crowd going was the women’s 400-meter hurdles.
Shani’a Bellamy led a majority of the race until the end when Leah Phillips snuck up and took the win with a personal-best time of 56.50 seconds. Bellamy ended up finishing right behind her with a time of 56.61 seconds. Both Tigers’ times sit at No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation entering this weekend according to TFRRS.
Another Tiger duo put on an amazing display on Friday as Lorena Rangel-Batres and Michaela Rose finished first and second. Rangel-Batres clocked the No. 2 time in the nation of 4:12.00, just .39 seconds off of her PR and LSU record of 4:11.61. Rose’s time of 4:12.88 puts her at third in the nation right behind her best friend and was just .90 seconds off of her PR and No. 2 time in LSU history of 4:11.98.
Senior Da’Marcus Fleming continues to have a stellar start to his season as he opened up the weekend with gold in the men’s 200 meter. Fleming finished with a time of 20.52 seconds (+2.1 m/s), which would rank him eighth in the nation entering this weekend. Entering the week, he also held the No. 2 time of 10.12 seconds in the 100 meter, which he will contest tomorrow on day two of the meet.
In the women’s long jump Morgan Smalls kept the gold at home as she reached a distance of 6.57 meters (21’ 6.75”) on her first jump of the evening. Smalls’ jump puts her at No. 2 in the nation and was just .01 meters off her PR from 2022.
Personal Bests
Louis Rudge ran a PR of 53.47 in the 400mh.
Aniyah Bigam ran a legal PR of 23.35 in the 200m.
Jordyn Grady ran a PR of 24.35 in the 200m.
Sydney Clemens ran a PR of 24.59 in the 200m.
Kennedi Sanders ran a PR of 23.83 in the 200m.
Hugh Carlson ran a PR of 3:54.00 in the 1500m.
Trenton Sandler ran a PR of 3:54.21 in the 1500m.
Hailey Day ran a PR of 4:32.07 in the 1500m.
Svenya Stoyanoff ran a PR of 4:38.37 in the 1500m.
Annie Fink ran a PR of 4:51.61 in the 1500m.
Rob Buisson ran a PR of 9:25.59 in the 3000m steeplechase.
Casey Goetschel ran a PR of 14:49.39 in the 5000m.
Taylor Fingers jumped a PR of 19’ 8.25” in long jump.
Up Next
LSU will host day two of the Battle on the Bayou at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium tomorrow.
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