JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The LSU men’s track and field team closed out their final day of action at the NCAA East First Round on Friday, hosted by North Florida at Hodges Stadium. The men punched nine tickets to the NCAA Outdoor Championships on day three, while the women claimed one as well.
Although it was the men’s second day of action, Johanna Duplantis had to resume the women’s pole vault competition Friday morning due to the weather on Thursday. Duplantis cleared the first two heights on Thursday without a miss, but began Friday with a struggle missing her first two attempts at 4.24 meters (13-11). The senior was able to clear her third attempt at the height to punch her ticket to the NCAA Championships for the first time in her career. Duplantis is the fourth in the family tree to make it to an NCAA Championship, joining Greg (dad), Andreas (brother) and Mondo (brother).
In the afternoon, Kuda Chadenga got the day started for the LSU men by punching his ticket to Eugene in high jump. Chadenga cleared all three heights in one attempt each to finish as the top jumper in the East. The height that earned the win came in at 2.18 meters (7-1.75”), a new season best.
A new 4×100-meter relay lineup is what got the running starting for the men on day two. The Tigers swapped Jahiem Stern for Jordan Turner, to go along with the usual three of Jaiden Reid, Myles Thomas and Jelani Watkins. The Tigers were the third team to pass the stick on the final exchange, but Watkins gave the crowd a classic-LSU walkdown to punch the Tigers ticket to Oregon with a time of 38.78 seconds.
The men’s hurdle duo of Matthew Sophia and Jahiem Stern weren’t able to produce clean clearances over 110 meters, but they were both able to qualify for the NCAA’s by time. Sophia had the fastest time of the duo, clocking 13.46 seconds (+1.5 m/s) to finish with the fastest non-auto spot. Stern took the 12th and final time-qualifying spot with 13.56 seconds (+0.9 m/s).
As usual, the duo of Reid and Watkins came back after the 4×100 and put on great performances in individual events. In the men’s 100 meter, Watkins clocked the fastest of the two with 10.01 seconds (+0.6 m/s), a new personal-best time that improves his No. 6 spot in LSU performance-list history. Reid took the win in his 100m heat to join Watkins in Eugene for the event with a time of 10.05 seconds (-0.2 m/s) that moves him to No. 8 in LSU PL history.
The two sprint stars came back just moments later to both punch their tickets to Eugene in the 200 meter. Reid clocked a phenomenal wind-aided time of 19.97 seconds (+2.4 m/s) to finish third in his heat. Watkins took off a couple heats later, clocking a new PR of 20.24 seconds (+0.8 m/s) to finish third in his heat as well.
To close the night for the LSU men was the 4×400-meter relay squad consisting of Jeremiah Walker, Shakeem McKay, Gregory Prince and Amal Glasgow. The Trio clocked a time of 3:03.78 to earn one of the three auto-qualifying spots in their heat on the way to the NCAA Championships.
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