Lady Tigers Track & Field Third at SEC\'s; Men Fourth

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Junior Jessica Ohanaja got the ball rolling for the LSU track and field teams Sunday by setting a meet record in the 60-meter hurdles, while the women’s 4x400-meter relay squad ended the day by clocking the nation’s fastest time at the SEC Indoor Championships.

Ohanaja wowed a lively crowd at the Nutter Field House during the afternoon’s first running events by improving upon her already established NCAA automatic qualifying time in the hurdles with the top time in the nation this year at 8.03 seconds.

The native of Houston, Texas, moves into the No. 3 spot on the school’s all-time indoor performance list behind former Lady Tiger greats Joyce Bates (7.99) and Lolo Jones (8.00) as she set both a new meet record and facility record en route to claiming the first individual SEC crown of her already stellar career.

“One of my goals coming into the meet was to get my time down to eight seconds flat,” Ohanaja said. “I didn’t run well at Tyson (Invitational) a couple of weeks ago, and I spent a lot of time fixing some of the mistakes I’ve been making with my technique. I came out today focused and executed my race like I knew I could. It feels great to win.”

Ohanaja also scored valuable points for the Lady Tigers in the 60 meters as she finished fifth by improving her NCAA provisional qualifying time set in the prelims on Saturday with a new personal best time of 7.42 in Sunday’s final heat. She finished the meet as the team’s top performer with 14 individual points as the Lady Tigers took third place in the team standings with a total of 101 points.

The Lady Tigers, who posted a seventh-place team finish at the meet a year ago, took third place in the team standings behind SEC champion Tennessee and Georgia. The Lady Volunteers won the team title by an impressive 17 points as they scored 120 for the meet, while the Bulldogs totaled just two more than the Lady Tigers with 103.

Junior All-American Richard Thompson followed Ohanaja’s record-setting performance by making history of his own just minutes later as he broke former LSU great Kelly Willie’s school record in the 60-meter dash. Thompson clocked a time of 6.64 to finish just a few one-thousandths of a second behind SEC champion Jeremy Hall of Florida and earn all-conference honors for the first time in his career.

“I actually thought I had won, but I didn’t see Jeremy holding the outside,” Thompson said. “I’ve had it in my mind that I could break the record since the fall when Coach (Dennis) Shaver got me to believe in myself that I could do it. Kelly is someone I really looked up to early on in my career, and it’s an honor for me to have his record.”

Fellow junior Reggie Dardar teamed with Thompson to help lead the men’s squad to a fourth-place finish at the meet with a team total of 79.5 points as he claimed 10 points with his first ever conference title in the 400 meters by clocking the No. 2 time in the country this season with a new personal best mark of 46.11 in Sunday’s final.

The Tigers finished fourth at the meet for the second straight year as they scored 2.5 more points than a team that featured former LSU greats Willie and Xavier Carter a year ago. The Arkansas Razorbacks won the SEC title after accumulating 126 total points in the team standings followed by Tennessee in second place with 115.5 and Florida with 93.5 points.

The Tigers and Lady Tigers were not satisfied with their already stellar performances in the sprints and hurdles as a pair of freshman middle distance standouts won SEC crowns in both the men’s and women’s 800-meter competition.

Highly-touted newcomer Jamaal James signed with LSU as one of the premier men’s half-mile recruits in the world and did not disappoint in just his third 800-meter competition at the collegiate level. James clocked a new indoor personal best time of 1 minute, 49.08 seconds to win the first of what is sure to be many SEC titles in his career.

James’ mark is the fifth-fastest time in the country by a collegiate athlete this season and is the second-fastest indoor time ever run by a men’s half-miler at LSU, giving him a strong provisional qualifying mark as he hopes to receive an invitation to compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships in two weeks.

Not to be outdone by her counterpart was Lady Tiger freshman LaTavia Thomas, who was the nation’s No. 1 800-meter recruit from a year ago. Thomas entered the weekend with the SEC’s fastest time in the event and set a new PR on Sunday to win an individual conference title of her own with the seventh-fastest time in the country at 2:05.76, strengthening her NCAA provisional qualifying time from earlier this season.

“What’s exciting for me is to see some of the newcomers like Jamaal James and LaTavia Thomas making a difference so early,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “They’re not just contributing, but they’re freshmen coming into their first SEC Championship meet and lining up to win the race. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”

The women’s 1,600-meter relay team also staked its claim among the nation’s elite squads as the foursome of junior Brooklynn Morris, junior Cynetheia Rooks, Thomas and junior Deonna Lawrence combined to run the top time in the nation this year and improve their NCAA automatic qualifying mark with a time of 3:29.86.

The Lady Tigers claimed the conference title in the event over runner-up South Carolina with each member running strong sub 53-second splits. Morris ran the lead leg before passing the baton to Rooks as the duo ran times of 52.85 and 52.35, respectively. Thomas took the baton on the third leg where she clocked a 52.98 before handing it to Lawrence, who anchored the team with an impressive 51.60 split.

“That was a battle between two very good teams, and we’re always going out there to try and win the race,” Shaver said. “It was a good, competitive relay, and it was the first time this season that (Natasha) Hastings hasn’t been able to run us down on the last leg. I really think that those relays are going to run even faster than that at the NCAA meet.”

A number of other athletes scored valuable points for both the men’s and women’s squads on the final day of competition.

The men’s foursome of freshman Armanti Hayes, senior Isa Phillips, senior Marvin Stevenson and Dardar earned all-conference honors in the 4x400-meter relay by running a season best NCAA automatic qualifying time of 3:06.09. The squad finished just a split-second behind Kentucky’s winning time of 3:05.87.

In addition, senior Alleyne Lett and junior Ryan Fontenot took fourth and sixth in the 60-meter hurdles, respectively, while senior Melville Rogers finished sixth and Hayes took eighth place in the 200 meter sprint. Senior Siraj Williams joined Dardar in the 400 meters with a sixth-place effort and sophomore Rueben Twijukye teamed with James in the half mile with a fourth-place finish.

In the distance events, senior Jeffrey Parker scored at the SEC meet for the first time in his LSU career by taking eighth place in the men’s mile with the men’s distance medley relay team also scoring by taking fifth place in the event.

The Tigers’ effort in the field events was highlighted by a pair of top finishes by sophomore all-conference performer Jeremy Hicks and freshman standout Will Coppage in the long jump as Hicks took third and Coppage placed fifth. Freshman Josh Dominguez added 3.5 points of his own in the field by tying for fifth in the pole vault.

On the women’s side, a trio of Lady Tigers earned scoring marks in both the 60 and 200-meter sprints. Junior Kelly Baptiste finished third in each event as she was joined by Ohanaja (fifth) and freshman Samantha Henry (eighth) in the short sprint and Morris (fifth) and senior Sherry Fletcher in the 200 meters.

Sophomore Nickiesha Wilson was the Lady Tigers’ best finisher in the quarter mile as she just missed earning all-conference honors in the event with a third-place event, while Lawrence took fourth and Rooks placed fifth. Senior Tanya Osbourne joined Thomas’ winning performance in the women’s 800 meters with an eighth place finish of her own.

In the field events, senior Shaunette Davidson followed her win in the women’s pentathlon with a tie for sixth in the high jump, while sophomore Andrea Linton and senior Kathy Coleman took third and fifth place in the triple jump, respectively.

“I’m proud of the way both teams competed at this meet,” Shaver said. “I saw a totally different, competitive women’s team this year than last year with basically the same women. That’s a real tribute to them for competing the way they did. The same goes for the men. To score more points here than last year with the athletes we lost says a whole lot about their competitiveness this weekend.”

Any LSU athlete that has not already qualified for the national meet will have one final opportunity to do so as the Tigers and Lady Tigers return to Baton Rouge to host the LSU Invitational at the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse on Friday. The NCAA Indoor Championships return to the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark., on March 9-10.