The LSU men’s and women’s track and field team added three more automatic qualifiers to its repertoire, continuing its pursuit for an indoor national championship at the Bayou Bengal Invitational on Friday.
For the second week in a row, sophomore Mallory McDonald set a school record in the weight throw.
Her mark of 65 feet, 2 3/4 inches automatically qualified her for nationals and was nearly a foot better than the throw which landed her the school record last week. McDonald’s throw is currently the fourth- best in the country.
“I didn’t have a good throw until my last one,” McDonald said. “Basically, I was overexcited and choked on my first few. Then coach settled me down, and I guess all you need is one good throw.”
With McDonald struggling through her first few throws and thoughts of next week’s big meet at Florida dancing through head coach Pat Henry’s mind, Henry said he calmly walked over to McDonald and said, “It’d be nice to let Florida know that you’re coming.”
John Moffitt and Nicole Toney took home the top spot in the men’s and women’s triple jump respectively and both earned an automatic qualifying mark for nationals.
Toney’s leap of 43-5 3/4 currently ranks No. 1 in the country while Moffitt’s jump of 53-3 ranks second in the country behind only teammate LeJuan Simon.
Simon provisionally qualified for nationals in the long jump with a bound of 25-7 1/2, the third best jump in the nation this year.
“We had a really good meet,” Henry said. “I’m very pleased with the effort we got and the main thing is we finished the meet with everybody healthy.”
Skylar Green and Adrian Mayes stepped off the football field and won the 60-meter dash (6.82 seconds) and 60-meter hurdles (8.07) respectively.
Their teammate Bennie Brazell turned in his football pads this track season and has qualified for nationals as a member of the NCAA-leading 4×400-meter relay team.
Lolo Jones added to the Tigers’ list as she provisionally qualified for the NCAA indoor meet in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.28.
Monique Hall scored the best time in the 200-meter with a time of 24.95.
Henry kept Southeastern Conference Athlete of the Week Muna Lee out of the meet along with Pete Coley and many of the Tigers’ top athletes to maintain their health for the entire indoor season.
The Tigers return to action Sunday when they travel to Gainesville, Fla. for the Gator Invitational.