The LSU women’s track and field team finished the second day at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships at Kentucky’s Nutter Field House in second place, while the men’s team finished tied for ninth. Freshman Rachel Laurent headlined the first day for the Lady Tigers, winning the pole vault with a jump of 14 feet, 1/2 inches. Laurent’s personal best broke her own school record and gave LSU its first vaulter in school history to win the conference championship in the event. No other competitor came close to the 14-foot mark, as the second-place finisher, Arkansas’ Tara Diebold, jumped 13 feet, 5 inches. “I actually had a little bit of a scare during warm-ups because the pole I was using was cracked in shipping and I had to use another one in the competition,” Laurent said in a news release. “I really didn’t even need it because I felt good once I got out there.” Laurent had 10 of the Lady Tigers’ 32 points on the day. Junior Katelyn Rodrigue finished fifth with a jump of 13 feet, 1 1/2 inches, getting four points in the same event. Junior Samantha Henry and sophomore Kenyanna Wilson both qualified for the 60-meter and 200-meter dash finals. Henry finished with the fastest preliminary times in both events, clocking 7.19 seconds in the 60-meter dash and 23.30 seconds in the 200-meter dash. Wilson ran 7.28 seconds in the 60-meter dash and 23.93 seconds in the 200-meter dash. Senior Jeremy Hicks’ third-place finish in the long jump gave the Tigers all six of their points on the day. Hicks jumped 24 feet, 11 inches. Six Tigers and 10 Lady Tigers qualified for finals on Sunday. “I don’t think we could have done any better than what we showed today, especially the women’s team,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver in a news release. “We probably scored more points than we were supposed to in the events that were finals today, and we had an outstanding day of qualifying and probably got quite a few more into finals tomorrow than we were expected to.” —- Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]
Track and Field: Women second, Men ninth after second day of SEC Indoors
February 28, 2009