Olympians and former LSU greats took to the track with the LSU track and field team Saturday, but junior middle distance runner Natoya Goule stole the show.
Goule broke her own school record in the 800-meter run, posting a blistering time of 2 minutes, .76 seconds, which bested her record of 2:01.18 set at UCLA’s Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational on April 6.
“The highlight of our day was seeing what Natoya Goule was able to do in the 800,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver. “It’s impressive to get on the Bernie Moore Stadium track and set a record with the events we’ve hosted and all the athletes who have run here over the years.”
The meet wasn’t a scored event, so there was no team winner. But joining LSU and its former All-American and Olympian athletes were athletes from a host of schools, including Alabama, Ilinois, Houston, Minnesota, Texas State, South Florida, Harvard and Texas A&M.
Also in the field of participants were in-state schools Louisiana-Monroe, UL-Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, Northwestern State and Tulane. LSU came away with three individual event wins in the meet.
Among the notable former Tigers who returned for the meet were Cassandra Tate, who took first in the women’s 400-meter hurdles on Saturday, and Jeremy Hicks, who bested LSU senior long jumper Damar Forbes for first place in the men’s long jump with a wind-aided jump of 27 feet, 3 inches.
Forbes, who currently boasts the second-best outdoor long jump in the NCAA this season, finished the meet with a best jump of 25-0 1/2 in what was his last home meet at LSU.
Also making her final appearance in a Baton Rouge meet was senior women’s sprinting star Kimberlyn Duncan, who easily bested the field in the women’s 100-meter with a time of 11.19.
Saturday wasn’t the final appearance Forbes and Duncan will make in an LSU uniform, as each will look to lead LSU at the SEC Championships in less than two weeks.
LSU will first compete Thursday in the Penn Relays in Philadelphia as the final warm-up meet before the conference championships.
With the season winding down, Shaver said he’s happy with the status of his team, especially the athletes with the most expectations such as Forbes and Duncan.
“Our top athletes have been consistently performing well for us, but we’ve been needing our No. 2 and No. 3 people to step up and compete a little bit better than what they have to this point,” Shaver said. “They are the ones who we will be counting on at the SEC meet in a few weeks.”
