BATON ROUGE, La. - A picture perfect day was the setting for some solid performances for the Tulane Track and Field program at the LSU Alumni Gold Invitational on Saturday. Tulane's Rebecca Coady won her heat of the 800-meter Invitational and Olivia Kizzee posting a pair of top-seven finish in the finals of the 100 and 200-meter Dash events. "I am extremely proud of our sprinters," said Tulane head coach Eric Peterson. "They all turned in some strong marks for our squad today and I am proud of the way the coach Roseby has adapted to working with our veteran sprinters and am impressed with the way she has been nurturing our young athletes. It was good to see Olivia have a strong performance in both of her events, which was a pretty tough double with not a lot of rest between the two events." The Olive and Blue had a handful of solid performances at the LSU Alumni Gold Meet as 16 of the athletes posted season best performances on the women's side. Coady, Vanessa Kienast, Kizzee and Candice St. Etienne all posted team-best performances in their respective events on Saturday.
Coady won her heat of the 800-meter event with a personal best time of 2:12.10, winning her heat of the event and finishing eighth overall in the Invitational portion of the meet. Johanna Gretschel also posted a season-best time in the 800-meter with a time of 2:20.08 in the open race.
Three Green Wave runners collected season-best showings in the 400-meter Dash with Vanessa Kienast crossing the finish line in 57.37-seconds for a team-best showing. St. Etienne and Danielle Pensack each posted times under 59-seconds for lifetime bests in the event. St. Etienne also posted a career-best mark in the 400-meter Hurdles with a showing of 1:08.04. On the men's side, five of the Green Wave competitors posted season-best times at the LSU Alumni Gold Invitational. Corey Squire posted a time of 9:47.27 in the 3000-meter Steeplechase to open the meet today, a career-best, and finished in sixth in the event. Brian Lozes was 11th in the 1500-meter run with a 4:01.63 performance, whileJordon Holtzman and Kevin Mitchell each posted season-best showing in the 800-meter run. Holtzman came across in 2:00.10 and Mitchell finished the race in a time of 2:07.77. The next meet on the schedule for the Green Wave is the Drake Relay's starting on Thursday, April 22.