The No. 4 Lady Tiger track and field team advanced two teams to the relay finals during Day 1 of the Penn State Penn Relays on Thursday.
The 4×100 relay with a team of senior Latoya McDermott, senior Kimberlyn Duncan, senior Takeia Pinckney and junior Toshika Sylvester finished third, behind Texas A&M and Oregon, with a time of 44.36 seconds. The relay team will compete in the event final on Friday afternoon.
The Lady Tigers finished runner up in the their heat of the preliminary round of the 4×400 meter relay with a time of 3:36.81. The 4×400 team consisted of senior Siedda Herbert, junior Nikita Tracey, sophomore Montenae Roye-Speight and junior Natoya Goule.
LSU’s distance medley relay (DMR) team finished eighth, but the team ran a season best and the fourth-fastest time in school history with a time of 11:22.71. A DMR consists four legs running 1,200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters and 1,600 meters.
LSU coach Dennis Shaver said the first day of Penn Relays went as well as he expected.
“We achieved what we came here to achieve today, as far as getting both of our relays through to the final. Qualifying well on the first day at Penn is so important because it really sets up the weekend for us,” Shaver said in a news release. “We also saw a good run from our DMR team. It’s not easy to crack our top 10 list in really any event, so it shows they ran well today in a very competitive field.”
Freshman Shanice Hall finished fourth in the high jump with a jump of 5 feet and 7.75 inches.
Junior throwers Denise Hinton and Karen Henning finished second and fourth in the hammer throw with throws of 192-6 and 190, respectively.
Freshman throwers Kelsey Carlsen and Doren Welch finished 10th and 11th in the javelin throw. Senior Brittany Porter finished eighth and junior Keri Emanuel landed at ninth in the long jump with jumps of 19-6.25 and 18-3.75, respectively.
Today, the No. 10 men’s track and field team will open up competition. Junior Shermund Allsop will be the lone Tiger competing in the 100-meter dash preliminaries. Sophomore Joshua Thompson will compete in the 110-meter hurdles.
Freshman Fitzroy Dunkley will compete in the men’s high jump, sophomore Rodney Brown will throw in the men’s shot put and both sophomore Jeremy Tuttle and junior Jeremy Obioha will compete in the men’s discus. Junior Jaora Johnson will be the only Tiger competing in the men’s pole vault.
Senior Damar Forbes will compete in the men’s long jump championship. The Tigers will also run in the 4×100 preliminaries.
On the women’s side, Jasmin Stowers will look to make history as the first Lady Tiger to “three-peat” in the Penn Relay’s 100-meter hurdles title. Freshman Chanice Chase will also compete in the event, while junior jumpers Keri Emanuel and Lynnika Pitts will compete in the triple jump.
Competition starts at 10 a.m. Friday morning.
