EUGENE, Ore. - Junior pole vaulter Josh Dominguez wrapped up the second day of competition at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships by scoring eight big points for LSU as he earned his first career All-America honor in the pole vault with an improbable runner-up finish Thursday.
The Tigers will head to the weekend with 10 points in the team standings as they sit in a tie for sixth place overall with only five events scored in the meet.
While Dominguez opened by clearing the bar at 16 feet, 4 ¾ inches on his third attempt, his run to second place appeared over before it even began as he fouled three attempts with the bar resting at a height that should have been 16-10 ¾. But the head official failed to raise the bar from 16-4 ¾ to 16-10 ¾, giving the Tiger senior and the rest of the field three more attempts at the height.
Dominguez then fought to stay in the competition by clearing the bar at heights of 16-10 ¾ and 17-4 ½ on his third attempt at each level. He then moved from 10th place all the way into the second position with an impressive second attempt clearance at 17-8 ½ to match his personal best entering the meet.
And if an event restart weren't enough, Dominguez had to wait through a 40-minute rain delay and take a 30-minute warm up before making his first attempt at 17-8 ½.
His improbable run came to an end with three consecutive misses at 17-10 ½ as he finished as the national runner-up to Jordan Scott of Kansas (17-8 ½). Scott was crowned this year's champion based on a fewer number of misses in the competition. Dominguez and Scott were the only vaulters to clear the 17-8 ½ bar.
It was the end of an exhausting day of vaulting as he began his warm up for the first flight at roughly 2:30 p.m. PDT. Dominguez made his way to the mix zone after the competition at approximately 9 p.m.
"I came here wanting to win but I guess I have to settle for second place," Dominguez said. "I capitalized on a second chance. It's unfortunate that they made a mistake like that, especially in a meet like this, but I just made the best of it given a second chance. We were out there for a long time. I was getting tired there at the end, but I stayed focused enough to get second place and score some points for the team."
Junior Melissa Ogbourne also earned her first career All-America honor on Thursday as she scored LSU's first points of the meet on the women's side with a fifth-place finish in the women's triple jump.
Despite the unfavorable conditions, Ogbourne stepped onto the Hayward Field runway in the first flight ready to compete and recorded her most impressive series of jumps as a Lady Tiger. After opening with a wind-legal jump of 42-8 ¾ on her first attempt, Ogbourne posted consecutive wind-aided attempts of 43-6 ½, 43-10 and 43-3 ¼ before setting a new wind-legal personal best of 43-8 on her fifth jump.
Her top mark of 43-10 stood as the fifth-best jump of the competition as she scored four points for LSU in the team standings and picked up her first All-America certificate as a Lady Tiger.
"Melissa just got out there and competed very well," said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. "When you've got it in you to come to the NCAA meet and have a personal-best type of performance in these conditions with the wind swirling and the rain coming down, it says a lot about how you prepare yourself to perform. Melissa got herself physically and mentally prepared to perform the way she did."
Sophomore All-American and two-time SEC champion Barrett Nugent set the track on fire for the Tigers as he cruised into the national final in the men's 110-meter hurdles with a personal-best performance.
Nugent, who lined up in the first of three semifinal heats with the sixth-fastest time in the nation this year at 13.56 seconds, set a new personal record with the fourth-fastest time outdoors by a collegian in 2010 as he cruised to the finish line in 13.52 for the second-fastest time of the day.
Nugent has qualified for the national final in the 110-meter hurdles for the second year in a row as he was the ninth-place finisher at the NCAA Outdoor Championships during his freshman season in 2009. He will run as the No. 2 seed in this year's final on Saturday at 1:16 p.m. CDT. Defending national champion Ronnie Ash of Oklahoma advanced with the fastest time of the semifinal round at 13.32.
With a clean run in the final, Nugent will have an opportunity to break the 24-year-old LSU school record of 13.50 set back in 1987 by former Tiger national champion Eric Reid.
"I think I only hit the fourth and fifth hurdles. After that, I really just quickened up and kind of let the race go where it was going," Nugent said. "I don't want to do what I did last year and start thinking about time or anything like that. The best thing for me to do is just to not even think about times and go out there and think of the whole process of running the hurdle race. That's what I've got to do."
"If you execute the race really well, then everything will come together in the end. But if you go out there just thinking about running for times, it's going to go badly. I've done that quite a few times."
After advancing their 4x100-meter relay team into the national final during Wednesday's competition, the Lady Tigers returned to the track Thursday for the semifinal round of the 4x400-meter relay and advanced again with the fourth-fastest time of the day at 3:33.43.
Senior Samantha Henry will have an opportunity to earn All-America honors in the 200-meter dash in the finale on Saturday as she recorded the eighth-fastest qualifying time during Thursday's semifinal round at 23.50. Henry advanced to the final based on time as she finished third in her semifinal heat.
Henry was joined in the semifinal of the 200-meter dash by a pair of freshmen as Takeia Pinckney (23.50) finished in ninth place and Kimberlyn Duncan (23.58) finished in 13th place in their NCAA debut.
The Tigers finished in 11th place in the semifinal round of the 4x400 relay with a time of 3:07.97. In other field event action, senior Kim Williams wrapped up her collegiate career with a 17th-place finish in the women's hammer throw with a top mark of 180-8 in the competition.
"We weren't perfect today by any means, but we had some kids that showed up today ready and prepared to compete and got it done," Shaver said. "We always tell our athletes that all they have to do is what they did to get here and they will put themselves in a position to help the team. We saw that again today. What we saw from Josh today proves it. What we saw from Melissa today proves it.
"We had some outstanding individual performances today. We need more of that when we come back for the third time tomorrow. We have to be ready for anything."
LSU continues the competition at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Friday as the field events begin at 6 p.m. CDT followed by the first events on the track at 7:32 p.m. All fans can access live results for the meet courtesy of Flash Results by logging on to www.flashresults.com.
Friday's competition at historic Hayward Field is also scheduled for a live television broadcast again this year on the CBS College Sports Network from 7-9 p.m. CDT.
Fans can also find up-to-the-minute and behind-the-scenes coverage of the Tigers and Lady Tigers by following @LSUTrackField on Twitter and by becoming a fan of the official LSU Track & Field page on Facebook. Results, photos and videos will be posted as they become available.
