Despite the windy conditions at Saturday’s LSU Alumni Gold Meet, junior sprinter Kimberlyn Duncan blew past the competition to advance her dreams of a national championship campaign.
The Lady Tiger swept her events as LSU hosted its third meet of the outdoor season, drawing teams that came from across the country to compete at the windswept Bernie Moore Stadium. Non-collegiate teams were also invited to the meet, including many former Tigers who are now competing in the independent-national ranks.
Duncan won her three events on the day, including her national-title defending season opener in the 200-meter dash with an illegal wind-aided time of 22.55 seconds. Due to the strong tailwind during the race, what would have been Duncan’s NCAA qualifying time will not count.
Duncan’s day was highlighted by the setting of a Bernie Moore Track Stadium 100-meter dash record with a time of 11.05 seconds. The time breaks the 18-year-old record set by former Lady Tiger Cheryl Taplin in 1994.
“Coming here, I never thought I would be breaking records or anything like that, but to break the record is very exciting,” Duncan said in a news release. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it for a little bit, but I want to keep improving and drop my times even more.”
Duncan’s 4×100 relay team of fellow junior Takeia Pickney and seniors Semoy Hackett and Rebecca Alexander won the event despite being unable to best its nation-leading time of 42.99, set at the Texas Relays in March. The team set its No. 2 time of the season with 43.35 seconds.
The Tigers’ relay team also took home the gold in the 4×100 with senior Riker Hylton battling down to the wire with Texas A&M junior sprinter and Louisiana native Ricky Babineaux.
LSU got off to an early lead in the race, but Babineaux was able to keep the race interesting, almost passing Hylton in the final turn. In the final straightaway, Hylton was able to maintain his lead and pulled away from the Aggie, eventually winning by 1.57 seconds.
“[The relay teams] are continuing to run solid performances in great conditions and then also in adverse conditions like we had today,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver. “It’s a real challenge in these type of conditions, you need to run, but at this point in the season you can’t afford to have any major injuries.”
Sophomore Jasmin Stowers also won her third straight 100-meter hurdles race when she set the NCAA’s No. 5 time under all conditions with her wind-legal time of 12.92 seconds. Stowers also handed Texas A&M junior Dominique Flemings her first loss of the season in six starts.
“The wind made it difficult to get some people qualified for the NCAA meet,” Shaver said. “But I still thought we got a number of solid performances from our athletes on what proved to be a
challenging meet.”
 
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Contact Michael Gegenheimer at [email protected]