BATON ROUGE - While proving herself as an early All-America contender in the hammer throw with a fast start to the 2012 outdoor season, Lady Tiger senior Brieanna Kennedy nearly set LSU's school record in the event with a personal-best mark of 203 feet, 0 inches on her very first throw in Friday's competition at the LSU Relays being held at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
After opening the outdoor season a week ago with a previous personal best of 194-4 in a third-place finish at the Louisiana Classics, Kennedy wasted no time Friday in setting yet another PR with an opening effort of 203-0 on her first attempt to take the early lead in the first round of throws.
Kennedy actually posted three marks in the preliminary round that eclipsed her previous hammer PR with consecutive marks of 195-7 on her second throw and 194-7 on her third throw of the day.
While unattached athlete Valerie Frazier earned the victory with a winning mark of 205-5 during the third round of throws, Kennedy's opening mark of 203-0 clinched second place in the final event standings and moved her into the No. 2 position on LSU's all-time outdoor performance list in the hammer.
While posting a mark that ranks No. 4 in the early NCAA rankings for the 2012 outdoor season, Kennedy is quickly closing in on Britney Henry's school record of 205-11 established back in 2004.
With her first full fall training season under her belt, Kennedy is off to a fast start outdoors while setting a pair of personal bests in both the discus (161-7) and hammer (203-0) in the first two weeks of the outdoor campaign. She was forced to miss much of fall training before her sophomore and junior seasons after she underwent two offseason surgeries to repair injuries to her right throwing shoulder.
"I've been more focused on training and going to practice every day with something to work on. To come out with a PR was surprising because my technique isn't where it needs to be right now," Kennedy said. "That makes me excited for the rest of the season because I know I still have a lot more I need to work on every day. Hopefully if I can get my technique right, my throws will reflect that with even better marks. It has been a long journey, but I'm really looking forward to the rest of the year."
It proved to be a banner day for the Lady Tiger hammer throwers, as sophomore Karen Henning followed Kennedy in third place with a personal record of her own at 197-2 and sophomore Denise Hinton finished in fifth place with a personal-best effort of 182-6 during Friday's competition.
Henning moved into the No. 4 position on LSU's all-time performance list in the women's hammer while setting a PR on her sixth and final throw of the afternoon to move into third place overall. She actually set two personal bests on the afternoon after opening the event with a mark of 195-7 in the first round.
After competing in the weight throw at the NCAA Indoor Championships two weeks ago, Hinton enjoyed a personal-best performance in her outdoor opener with a series-best mark of 182-6 on her third throw for the competition to move into the No. 7 spot on LSU's all-time performance list in the event.
While Kennedy led the way in the field with one of the nation's leading marks in the hammer for the 2012 season, two Lady Tiger juniors set the pace on the track with NCAA-leading times in the 1,500 meters.
After wrapping up the indoor season with All-America honors in the 800 meters in her last appearance for the Lady Tigers at the NCAA Indoor Championships, junior Charlene Lipsey opened up outdoors with an impressive victory in the women's 1,500-meter run while shattering her previous PR by more nearly eight seconds with a winning time of 4 minutes, 20.91 seconds on Friday night.
With the victory, Lipsey moved to the top of the NCAA rankings on the young season and moved into the No. 4 spot on LSU's all-time outdoor performance list in the event.
Fellow junior Laura Carleton wasn't far behind as she earned a second-place finish with a personal record of her own at 4:22.75 for the No. 2-ranked effort in the NCAA into the second week of the outdoor season and the No. 6-ranked time on the school's all-time performance list behind Lipsey's 4:20.91.
Two Lady Tigers added field event victories on the first day of the 2012 LSU Relays as sophomore Lynnika Pitts cleared an outdoor PR of 5-8 ½ to claim the high jump title and freshman Tori Bliss opened her outdoor season with a top mark of 49-5 to take home the shot put crown.
"We saw some performances today that are going to add to strengthen our numbers at the NCAA Outdoor Championships," said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. "Today was a good start for both our squads at the LSU Relays. We're looking forward to an exciting afternoon of events tomorrow."
This year's LSU Relays kicked into high gear with the 2012 outdoor debut of two of the NCAA's premier 4x100-meter relay teams as the Tigers and Lady Tigers cruised to easy wins during Friday's prelims.
The Lady Tigers were the first to step onto the track for Friday's prelim action, as the squad of sophomoreJasmin Stowers, senior Semoy Hackett, senior Rebecca Alexander and junior Kimberlyn Duncan posted a season-opening time of 43.94 to finish nearly three seconds faster than the team from Louisiana-Lafayette (46.82) with the No. 2-ranked time in the NCAA early in the outdoor season.
The Tigers followed by running the NCAA's second-fastest sprint relay on the men's side with a qualifier of 39.62 as the team of senior Barrett Nugent, sophomore Shermund Allsop, senior Keyth Talley and freshman Aaron Ernest beat Team Canada (39.79) to the finish line in the first heat.
Saturday's championship action kicks off at 1 p.m. CDT with the finals of the men's and women's 4x100-meter relays following a brief opening ceremony on the final day of this year's LSU Relays.
LSU followed with a sweep of men's and women's sprint medley relay titles to highlight the action as the Tigers clocked 3:19.95 and the Lady Tigers clocked 3:54.52 for their first relay wins of the weekend.
The Tigers won the men's sprint medley title with a team of senior Robert Simmons, senior Ade Alleyne-Forte, freshman Quincy Downing and junior Howard Shepard. The Lady Tigers featured the winning club of junior Siedda Herbert, senior Cassandra Tate, senior Jonique Day and freshman Samantha Levin.
Saturday's finals will feature an LSU flare as the Tigers and Lady Tigers combined for 12 qualifiers in the preliminary action held Friday afternoon in the 100-meter dash and hurdle events.
The Tigers will occupy five of the nine lanes in the final of the men's 100-meter dash, including Ernest as the top qualifier after his wind-legal run of 10.38 (-0.4) in the prelim round. He'll be joined in the race by Talley (10.47), Nugent (10.47), Allsop (10.64w) and freshman Trevor Sansone (10.68). In addition, Tiger sophomoreCourtney Edwards (54.30) will run in the final of the men's 400-meter hurdles.
The Lady Tigers will feature three finalists in both the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles on Saturday as they were led by a personal-best performance by junior hurdler Shanekia Hall on Friday.
While running into a strong headwind of -2.5 meters per second, Hall set a wind-legal PR of 13.76 for the fastest qualifying time of the day in the 100-meter hurdles as she is a favorite to take the title on Saturday. She will also line up in the 100-meter final after advancing with a wind-aided time of 12.11.
Sophomores Toshika Sylvester (11.82) and Stowers (11.87) will join Hall in the final of the 100 meters in the finale. Freshmen Alex Gochenour (14.23) and Kaitlyn Moreau (14.66) will also run the hurdles.
Gochenour added a wind-legal personal best in a fifth-place finish in the women's long jump, as she had a mark of 18-4 ½ on her third attempt of the prelim round en route to a fifth-place finish. Junior Cullen Doody(3:54.02) and freshman Philip Primeaux (3:59.37) added PRs in the men's 1,500 meters.
Championship Saturday at the LSU Relays will heat up at 1 p.m. CDT following the opening ceremony at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium. The second day of competition also features a morning session that will kick off at 9 a.m. with the field events, followed by the first events on the track at 9:30 a.m. "Kids Day" is set to begin at noon CDT and will run through 2 p.m. at the stadium.