BATON ROUGE -- Seniors Kathy Coleman and Ryan Fontenot took full advantage of their last chance to qualify for the NCAA Championships on Friday night by posting automatic qualifying marks in their respective events at the LSU NCAA Indoor Qualifier.
Coleman kicked off the meet with an automatic qualifying mark in the long jump, while Fontenot followed on the track by crossing the finish line with an automatic time in the 60-meter hurdles.
With their effort, the Tigers and Lady Tigers wrapped up their final meet before next weekend’s NCAA Championships with a combined 16 automatic qualifiers and 23 provisional qualifiers.
The Lady Tigers have shown why they are the nation’s top-ranked squad and among the favorites to win this year’s indoor national title as they boast 12 automatic qualifiers and 12 provisional qualifiers. The Tigers will also be well-represented at the national meet next weekend as they end the season with a total of four automatic qualifiers and 11 provisional qualifiers.
“Our kids have had a great season so far and they’ve competed very well to this point, but next week is a whole different ballgame,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “We will be one of a number of teams in a position to win a national championship. It’s going to be a dogfight.
“Next weekend is all about which teams show up mentally prepared and ready to compete for two days. It’s like competing in two different track meets. After the first meet on Friday, you have to regroup and refocus as a team for an intense track meet on Saturday. There will be a lot of teams that show up ready to win, and we’re going to have to bring our ‘A’ game if we want to keep up.”
Fontenot enjoyed a record setting performance in the 60-meter hurdles as he tied the LSU school record and set a new facility record at the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse with a time of 7.70 seconds.
The Baton Rouge native matched the school record set by former Tiger Alleyne Lett in both the prelims and finals at the NCAA Championships a year ago. He is now the No. 4 performer in the NCAA this season and is set to make his first career appearance at the NCAA Indoor meet.
“That was just an awesome job by Ryan to run a time like that in his last race of the regular season,” Shaver said. “The thing that pleases me so much about his performance is the confidence he has about what he can get accomplished for our team at the NCAA meet. He’s been consistent all year long, and I think that consistency is going to pay off with a big performance next week.”
Coleman stepped onto the long jump runway Friday without an NCAA qualifying mark to her credit this season, but she walked away from the competition as an automatic qualifier with a new overall personal best in the event.
Coleman, who entered the meet with a seasonal best mark of 19 feet, 11 ½ inches, raced down the runway for her sixth and final jump of the competition and hit a mark of 20-10 ½, eclipsing her previous personal best of 20-8 ½ set last season and moving her into the No. 8 spot on LSU’s all-time indoor performance list in the event.
Like Fontenot, Coleman earned the right to represent LSU at the NCAA Indoor Championships for the first time in her collegiate career with her performance on Friday night.
“I’m proud of Kathy and what she did tonight to get herself into the NCAA meet,” Shaver said. “I knew she had it in her, and she came up big for us on her last jump. That jump has to come in her first three next weekend if she wants to make the final at the NCAA Championships.”
A pair of LSU throwers enjoyed personal best performances in their final meet of the indoor season as junior Rabun Fox uncorked the fourth-longest throw in school history with a mark of 62-11 ½, while sophomore Kim Williams recorded a new personal best of 56-1 ¾ in the event.
The indoor season comes to an end next weekend as the nation’s best teams meet at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark., for the 2008 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. The two-day meet is scheduled to run March 14-15 as the event returns to the University of Arkansas for the eighth straight season.