LSU looks to bring home 24 gold medals at the 2016 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers advanced 24 athletes to the semifinals after three days of competing at the preliminary rounds in Jacksonville Florida.
“Our athletes really did their job and gave a great effort [this weekend] to put themselves in a great position to compete when we go to Eugene in a couple of weeks,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver in a press release on Saturday.
LSU junior javelin thrower Rebekah Wales threw a qualifying 161 feet, 6 inches on Thursday to place sixth in the women’s javelin throw. Wales was the first LSU athlete to advance to the semifinals.
Wales said she thought some good competitors didn’t make it because of the wind on Thursday.
“I was just trying to make it through. Especially in the throws, it doesn’t matter how you get in. If you’re 12th, you’re in,” Wales said in a press release. “[The wind] was bad, really bad. It was a cross headwind, actually. If you threw it straight up, it was coming right back down. So you really had to line-drive it into the wind.”
Senior sprinter and hurdler Chanice Chase qualified for both the 100-meter hurdles and 400-meter hurdles. Chase achieved a personal-best in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 55.35 seconds to finish third. She finished fourth in the 100-meter hurdle with a time of 12.92 seconds.
Junior sprinter Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake finished in second with a time of 10.20 seconds and was followed by junior sprinter Tinashe Mutanga, who placed fourth and eighth overall in 10.34 seconds in the men’s 100-meter dash on Friday.
Junior sprinter Michael Cherry won the men’s 400-meter with a time of 45.22 seconds. Senior jumper Fitzroy Dunkley closed in at third in the event to qualify with a time of 45.46 seconds.
Junior sprinter LaMar Bruton finished in the No. 10 spot with a season-best of 45.99 seconds for fourth place in the heat.
“Basically, we all just wanted to get through,” Cherry said in a press release. “We all three wanted to get through, that’s basically it. We were all in the same heat, so we went in thinking we would go 1-2-3. We treated it like practice. We’re really competitive. It didn’t happen like that, but we knew LaMar [Bruton] would get through. He had a seasonal best, so we’re happy for that.”
The Championships will take place in Eugene, Oregon at the Oregon Hayward Field on June 8-11.
