On day one of the New Mexico Collegiate Classic, senior All-American Aaron Ernest sprinted to the NCAA lead in the 200-meter dash. On the following day, the LSU track and field teams had three members finish in the top 16 of the national rankings.
After beginning the competition outside the top 10, Ernest shot himself to the top of the national rankings with a season best time of 20.73 seconds. Ernest, a former Southeastern Conference indoor champion, is looking to cap his collegiate career with his first national title and is currently No. 1 in the NCAA.
“Aaron is running with a lot of confidence right now, and he pretty much assured himself a spot in the NCAA meet with his performance,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver in a news release.
Fellow senior Rodney Brown threw a personal best 69 feet, 3.25 inches to win the men’s weight throw title. The throw gave Brown his first victory in the event this season and puts him at No. 16 in the country.
LSU swept the top four spots in the event as senior Jeremy Tuttle, junior David Collins and junior Patrick Geers finished in second, third and fourth place, respectively.
Sophmore Nataliyah Friar won the women’s long jump event with a leap of 20 feet 5 inches, and sophomore Ka’Lynn Jupiter came out on top of the unseeded 400-meter dash with a time of
55.59 seconds to lead the Lady Tigers on the first day.
Sophmore Treymayne Acy and freshman Aleia Hobbs each sprinted to a personal best in their respective
60-meter dash while TCU transfer Jordan Moore achieved his best time as a Tiger in the 60-meter hurdles to lead LSU on the second day.
Acy crossed the finish line in 6.63 seconds, the best time of his career, to finish 0.1 seconds short of the first place time set by Texas sophomore Senoj-Jay Givens.
Hobbs ran a time of 7.27 seconds to take home the bronze medal in her event. She is now ranked No. 10 nationally. 
Moore moved to No. 8 in the nation in his event with a time of 7.80 seconds.
The team finished the weekend with five NCAA top 16 rankings, three LSU alltime, top-10 performances and 14 indoor personal bests.
“We’re very pleased with what we were able to get done as a team here this weekend,” Shaver said. “We came here to Albuquerque with some things in mind that we wanted to get done, and I think both teams did a pretty good job of that over the two days. There is still a lot of work to be done, so we look forward to another opportunity to compete next weekend.”
LSU will return to the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas next weekend for the Tyson Invitational from Feb. 13-14.
You can reach Mario Jerez on Twitter @MjerezIIITDR.