Muna Lee breaks records.
LSU’s 10-time All-American sprinter broke two meet records this weekend at the Armory Collegiate Invitational in New York’s Armory Track and Field Center.
Lee cruised to victories in both the 60- and 200-meter dashes, breaking the two meet records she set during last season’s visit to the “Meet of Champions” in the Upper West Side.
Her winning times — 7.25 seconds in the 60 and 23.18 in the 200 — were worthy of automatic qualifying marks for indoor nationals. The 23.18 is her season-best time in the 200, but her best mark in the 60 this season is 7.20. She remains undefeated through nine individual races this season.
The Lady Tigers’ seven-time All-American Stephanie Durst recorded an automatic qualifying mark of her own with a 23.60-second 200.
“I was really pleased with Muna Lee,” said head coach Pat Henry. “She had a great day, and I thought Stephanie Durst also looked really good today.”
LSU placed first in six events with the No. 1-ranked Lady Tigers’ claiming five.
Nicole Toney won the triple jump and finished third in the long jump for the women. And on the men’s side, John Moffitt won the long jump and finished second in the triple jump as Traun Smith represented the third-ranked men’s team by placing third and fourth in the triple jump and long jump respectively.
The men’s top-ranked 4×400-meter relay team of Pete Coley, Bennie Brazell, Marlon Greensword and Kelly Willie competed for the first time since posting a NCAA indoor automatic qualifying mark of 3:06.54 in the first meet of the season at the Southeastern Conference West Challenge.
Their time of 3:08.02 was more than one second faster than the meet record the Tigers set last year at the Armory, but finished two-tenths of a second behind South Carolina Saturday.
The women’s 4×400 team also placed second to South Carolina.
“We had a good meet this weekend,” Henry said. “It’s really hard to focus on any specific performances, but I think that our female quarter-milers really looked good, and our male quarter-milers looked good as well.”
The Lady Tigers’ swept the 60-meter hurdles as Lolo Jones, RaNysha LeBlanc and Tiffany Robinson placed first, second and third respectively.
And the Lady Tigers placed first and second in the 800-meter hurdles as Neisha Bernard-Thomas finished three-hundredths of a second in front of All-American Marian Burnett.
Henry said the times are usually better on a banked track — where the track rises in elevation toward the outer lanes. The Armory has a banked track and so does Arkansas, where the SEC West Challenge took place.
“I think that overall we had a good performance,” Henry said. “We still have a ways to go, but we’re young and we’re coming.”