Last week, LSU track and field coach Pat Henry compared the season to a ladder, and said the goal of a team is to progress each week. And in just the second meet of the indoor season, two LSU athletes set school records at the Purple Tiger Invitational.
Junior Muna Lee continued to dazzle the track and field community Saturday as she set yet another LSU record in the 60-meter dash (7.20 seconds). Her time eclipsed the previous record of 7.21 she shared with Olympian D’Andre Hill.
“We’ve had some gold medalists here at LSU, and Muna Lee ran faster than any of them today,” Henry said. ‘That’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment.”
Through two meets, Lee established herself as the premier sprinter in the NCAA by automatically qualifying for nationals in both the 60- and the 200-meter dashes.
Sophomore Mallory McDonald also set a school record for the Lady Tigers. Her 64-foot, 5-inch hurl placed her first in school history in the weight throw and provisionally qualified her for nationals.
That throw ranks her sixth in the country this season and shattered the old school mark she set last season by nearly two feet.
The Tigers turned in winning scores in eight other competitions throughout the course of the meet.
Stephanie Durst completed the 200 in a time of 24.42 seconds, practically a full second ahead of her nearest competitor. And both the men’s and women’s teams won the distance medley relays with scores of 10 minutes, 16.85 seconds and 12:16.59 respectively.
The Lady Tigers also ran away with the top two spots in the 4×400-meter relay.
Although the LSU’s top-ranked men’s 4×400-meter relay team did not compete in the meet, there was no lack of excitement in the race.
As LSU sprinter Tamario Thomas was neck-and-neck during the third-leg with the runner from the University of Texas, the two got tangled up and the Longhorn runner went down. As Thomas handed the baton to Preston Goodlow, Texas’ anchor-leg bolted ahead of Goodlow, even though the Longhorns were disqualified from the race, cut him off and set the crowd into a frenzy.
LSU athletes were upset after the altercation and said they “cannot wait until the next time we face Texas again” when the Tigers have their “A” team ready to run.
In the field events, the nation’s leader in the long jump, John Moffitt, improved his season-best mark by recording a jump of 25-8 3/4. Moffitt’s jump was 1-half a foot shy of the NCAA automatic mark, but his latest jump provisionally qualifies him for the national meet.
The Tigers now either automatically or provisionally have qualified in 11 events through two meets, and Henry said he has not seen better results this early in any season.
“It’s a long climb to the top, but we took another step toward it [Saturday],” Henry said. “We are beginning to develop some consistency in a number of events, and if we continue to do that, we are going to improve pretty quickly.” LSU will host its next meet this Friday at the Bayou Bengal Invitational in the Carl Maddox Field House.