Track & Field’s Women Score Three Points, Advance Three Individuals and One Relay to the NCAA Finals
EUGENE, Ore. – The LSU women’s track & field team opened up their week at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on Thursday, hosted by Oregon at the historic Hayward Field.
The first points of the week for LSU came in the women’s 10,000 meter. Newcomer Edna Chepkemoi clocked an LSU record of 32:10.75 to earn a sixth-place finish in her first NCAA appearance. With the sixth-place finish, Chepkemoi scored three points for LSU. Her previous personal-best time entering the meet was 33:11.87 from the NCAA East First Round and makes her just the second Tiger to go sub-33 minutes.
A rough start to the day came as the women’s 4×100-meter relay finished third in their heat and eventually lost their time qualifier spot to the heat three times. The quartet of Machaeda Linton, Nasya Williams, Aniyah Bigam and Tima Godbless clocked a time of 43.30 seconds. After multiple protests were submitted, Georgia was found to have exchanged out of the final zone, giving LSU the final auto-qualifier spot in the heat.
Moments later Godbless returned to take on the women’s 100 meter. Godbless clocked a wind-aided time of 10.91 seconds, which was equal to her PR of 10.91 that she set at the NCAA East First Round. Godbless was one of six women in the semifinals that went sub-11 seconds in the event to advance to Saturday’s final.
One of the biggest moments of the week so far came from Ella Onojuvwevwo. The junior clocked a new LSU record of 50.31 seconds to win her heat and advance to the final in the 400 meter. Onojuvwevwo is now the fastest Nigerian women in the past 25 years and erased .26 off of her previous record of 50.57 seconds from a season ago.
Michaela Rose has been in rare form the past few meets as she continued her dominance in the 800-meter semifinals on Thursday. The senior clocked another sub-two-minute time with 1:58.95 to win her heat with ease. Rose’s time of 1:58.95 is the new NCAA Championship meet record, improving on the time of 1:59.11 from Wisconsin’s Suzy Favor over 35 years ago.
Senior Johanna Duplantis closed her career with the Tigers on Thursday in exciting fashion. The Tiger had seen much improvement throughout the season, steadily increasing her best in pole vault multiple times outdoors. Duplantis cleared a huge PR of 4.39 meters (14-4.75) to finish 11th in her first and final NCAA appearance. The height of 4.39 meters puts her at second in LSU performance-list history and No. 8 in Swedish history.
Women’s Day Two Schedule (Saturday, June 14)
2:30 p.m. – Women’s Discus Throw Final (Hyman)
8:02 p.m. – Women’s 4x100m Relay Final (Linton, Williams, Bigam, Godbless)
8:10 p.m. – Women’s Triple Jump Final (Linton)
8:52 p.m. – Women’s 100 Meter Final (Godbless)
9:02 p.m. – Women’s 400 Meter Final (Onojuvwevwo)
9:14 p.m. – Women’s 800 Meter Final (Rose)
Follow Us
Stay up to date with all things LSU track and field by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.