BATON ROUGE -- Four Lady Tigers opened their indoor seasons with provisional qualifying marks at the Purple Tiger Invitational Indoor meet held Saturday at the Carl Maddox Field house.
The men\'s and women\'s teams combined for 14 event titles, tying last year\'s mark in the same meet.
\"There were a lot of guys who have already scored points at the NCAA meet and they are already showing better performances this early than they ever have,\" said head coach Dennis Shaver. \"That\'s an extremely positive thing.\"
Sophomore Kathy Coleman won the women\'s long jump competition with a provisional qualifying mark of 20-3 1/2. Right behind her Lady Tiger junior Tina Harris finished with a provisional mark of her own at 20-0 1/4. Both Lady Tigers beat the competition by nearly a foot.
In the women\'s 60 meter hurdles, sophomore Jessica Ohanaja ran a personal best mark to provisionally qualify on her on with a time of 8.42 seconds.
\"That was my goal for this meet, to run a provisional time in my first meet,\" stated Ohanaja.
The final provisional qualifier of the day came later when sophomore Kelly Baptiste blazed a 7.36 seconds time in the 60 meter dash. Coach Shaver praised his young stars. \"All and all I think there was a real good blend of some quality performances. There\'s a solid nucleus of basically sophomores and that\'s exciting.\"
LSU completed a meet relay sweep when both men\'s and women\'s distance medley relays and 4x400 meter relays garnered gold.
Lady Tiger Cynetheia Rooks collected the women\'s 400 meter run crown with a time of 57.62 seconds in her first indoor race for LSU. The transfer from Michigan State earned All-Big Ten honors last year and holds the Michigan State team 400 meter record with a time of 53.54 seconds that she set as a sophomore.
Yet another super sophomore for the Lady Tigers, Lindsay Day won the 800 meter run with a time of 2:21.06, barely nipping Whitney Hampton of Tulane by just half of a second.
The field events were equally strong for the Lady Tigers. In addition to the team\'s win of the long jump, triple jumper Nedra Gross locked up her event with a jump of 40-02 3/4. Shaunette Davidson also garnered the high jump crown for LSU with a jump of 5-05 3/4. Finishing right behind her, senior Megan Akre cleared the same height but on a second attempt.
On the men\'s side, LSU swept the evening\'s upper distance events winning the 800 meter dash, the mile, and the 3000 meter run.
Junior transfer Jeffrey Parker won the mile event for the Tigers with a time of 4:18 in his first indoor mile for the Tigers. The Baton Rouge native was excited about his time but acknowledged he had a little left in the tank. \"I think I could have run sub 4:15 if I had had someone to push me and that\'s really hard on this track,\" said Parker.
Though this is just the first indoor meet of the year, Shaver is excited about where his team is headed. \"Overall we\'re all quite please with the first time out with how the team was showing a little camaraderie, and most importantly, they realize that this is just the start. Everybody knows that each week they\'ve got to go to a little higher level and they are very excited about that challenge.\"
LSU will now prepare for its next meet, the New Mexico Invitational in Albuquerque on Saturday, Jan. 21. The teams will then return to Maddox Field house for the Bayou Bengal Invitational on Friday Jan. 27.