Duncan's Collegiate Record Highlights Final Day at NCAA Prelims
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. –
Defending NCAA champion and Bowerman Award candidate Kimberlyn Duncan
set the track on fire in Saturday’s finale at the NCAA East Preliminary
Rounds as she crushed her own low-altitude collegiate record in the
200-meter dash to lead 12 semifinal qualifiers on the final day of
competition at Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida.
On
a calm and cool Saturday evening in Jacksonville, Duncan blew away the
competition to cross the line in 22.22 seconds to win the first
quarterfinal heat and cruise into the NCAA semifinals.
That
performance eclipsed her previous personal record and low-altitude
collegiate record of 22.24 posted in winning the NCAA Outdoor crown as
a sophomore just one year ago. It also moved her to No. 2 on the NCAA’s
all-time wind-legal list as former Lady Tiger national champion Dawn
Sowell set the all-altitude collegiate record of 22.04 at altitude in
Provo, Utah, at the 1987 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
While
running with only the slightest of tailwinds at 0.1 meters per second,
Duncan also became the 2012 world leader in the 200-meter dash,
surpassing the previous world-leading 22.31 (+1.5) by Carmelita Jeter
at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational in Westwood,
Calif., on April 14.
A native of Katy, Texas, Duncan has shown
tremendous form as the defending NCAA 200-meter champion as she is now
a national semifinalist in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes with
her performance for the weekend at the 2012 NCAA East Preliminary
Rounds in Jacksonville.
Both the semifinal and final rounds of
the 2012 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships will
run June 6-9 at Drake Stadium on the campus of Drake University in Des
Moines, Iowa.
All athletes earning a top-12 finish in their
respective events this weekend for the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds
have earned a berth into the national semifinals beginning in 11 days.
“No,
I did not,” Duncan said when asked if she expected to run a personal
best in Saturday’s quarterfinals at Hodges Stadium. “I’m just trying to
qualify for the next round. The goal at this meet is to just get to the
next round and score points for my team at nationals. It just felt like
a normal race. I’m really excited with the way I ran my race, and am
now ready for nationals. That’s what we’ve been working for all year.”
Four
other LSU sprinters set personal records in the quarterfinals of the
200-meter dash in the finale at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds,
including senior Semoy Hackett and freshman Aaron Ernest to move on
with Duncan to the NCAA semifinals in the event in Des Moines.
After
Duncan broke her own low-altitude collegiate record to win the first
quarterfinal heat, Hackett raced to a wind-legal PR of 22.55 to win the
second heat with the NCAA’s No. 2-ranked time in 2012. Her time of
22.55 also ranks No. 9 for the world list for 2012 and No. 9 on LSU’s
all-time outdoor performance list in the event as she advances to the
national semifinal for the second-straight season.
“I’ve felt
much better running (the 200 meters) this week. I knew I had it in me,”
Hackett said. “I’m really happy because we’ve been training hard. We
were ready to run well today. We’re working hard to get that NCAA
championship for our team. That’s what we all really want this year.”
Ernest
led a trio of Tigers setting PRs in the quarterfinal round of the men’s
200-meter dash after claiming fourth place in the second heat with his
run of 20.54 (+0.5).
Ernest, a product of Homewood High School
in Homewood, Ala., advanced to the national semifinal with the top
at-large time of the evening while setting a personal best for the
second-straight day. He moved on to the quarterfinal round with a 20.61
clocking in the first round of qualifying on Friday. He also qualified
for the 100-meter semifinal with his performance in Friday’s
quarterfinal round.
Also running personal bests in the event in
Saturday’s finale was senior Keyth Talley with a time of 20.70 (+1.0)
for fourth place in the third heat and 13th place overall and sophomore
Shermund Allsop in his time of 20.71 (+0.2) for fourth place in the
first heat and 15th place overall.
“It feels good,” Ernest
said when asked to describe his feelings of running a 200-meter PR. “I
just came in focused on this meet, just trying to do what I needed to
do to move on to the next round. We have a really great program at LSU,
and I just try to do what the coaches tell me and trust what they say.”
It
didn’t take long for the track to heat up with the start of Saturday’s
quarterfinals, as the Tigers and Lady Tigers each advanced to the
national semifinals with their heat in the 4x100-meter relays.
The
No. 1-ranked Lady Tigers cruised to an easy win in the second women’s
quarterfinal with the leading time of the day at 43.26 to finish nearly
one second ahead of Louisiana Tech’s school-record run of 44.11. Taking
the heat victory for the women in their first quarterfinal race of the
afternoon was the foursome of sophomore Takeia Pinckney, Hackett,
senior Rebecca Alexander and Duncan.
The Tigers won the second
quarterfinal of the men’s 4x100 relay when the team of senior Barrett
Nugent, Ernest, Talley and Allsop crossed the finish line in 39.61 for
the fourth-fastest time of the afternoon.
Nugent, the defending
NCAA champion in the 110-meter hurdles, then returned to the track just
moments later to run in the third quarterfinal heat of the men’s sprint
hurdles. He took second place in the heat with the fourth-fastest time
of the day at 13.50 to give himself an opportunity to defend his
national crown.
Two Lady Tigers also advanced to the national
semifinals in the sprint hurdles on Saturday, as sophomore Jasmin
Stowers and junior Shanekia Hall earned their first trip to Des Moines
as Lady Tigers. Stowers ran 13.03 (+0.5) to finish second in the third
heat with the fourth-fastest time of the day, and Hall ran her new
personal best of 13.11 (+0.6) for fourth in the second heat with the
eighth-best time of the day.
Tiger freshman Andreas Duplantis
opened Saturday’s finale at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds with a
personal-best performance in the men’s pole vault as he earned his trip
to Des Moines with a top-12 finish in the event. After clearing the bar
at 15 feet, 11 ¾ inches with his first attempt, Duplantis followed with
a first-attempt clearance at 16-5 ½, a second-attempt clearance at
16-11 ½ and a first-attempt clearance with the bar at 17-3 ½ before it
was raised to a height of 17-5 ½.
And when he was down to his
final jump with two misses at 17-5 ½, Duplantis soared over the bar for
his third and final attempt to secure a spot in his first national
semifinal. That performance also moved him to the No. 9 spot on LSU’s
all-time outdoor performance list in the men’s pole vault.
Junior
Thomas Reinecke cleared 16-11 ½ to tie for 20th place, while junior
Joseph Caraway posted a mark of 16-5 ½ to tie for 27th place and
sophomore Jaora Johnson cleared 15-11 ¾ to tie for 38th place.
Senior
Brieanna Kennedy followed with an eighth-place finish of her own in the
women’s hammer, as she qualified for the quarterfinal with a top mark
of 186-5 on her third attempt, before improving with her two
back-to-back marks of 195-5 in the fourth round and 198-2 in the fifth
round of the competition. She’ll be competing in the NCAA semifinals in
the hammer throw for the second-straight season.
The Tigers and
Lady Tigers put the exclamation point onto the end of this year’s NCAA
East Preliminary Rounds as each raced to heat wins with the fastest
times of the day in the 4x400-meter relays.
The Tigers were the
first to step onto the track for the men’s quarterfinal and won the
third heat with their seasonal-best time of 3 minutes, 3.20 seconds as
freshman Quincy Downing (46.68), senior Robert Simmons (45.49), senior
Ade Alleyne-Forte (45.57) and senior Riker Hylton (45.46) finished
ahead of the team from Penn State (3:03.57). Each also qualified for
the semifinals in the 400 meters on Friday.
The Lady Tigers
followed by winning the first heat of the women’s quarterfinal with a
time of 3:30.05 for the fastest time of the day as junior Latoya
McDermott (53.71), senior Rebecca Alexander (52.11), senior Cassandra
Tate (52.57) and senior Jonique Day (51.64) finished ahead of Clemson’s
3:33.14.
“What else can you really say with the way our teams
competed this weekend? There’s nothing else I can say but that we did
everything we could possibly do here this weekend to give us an
opportunity to go out and compete for a national championship in Des
Moines,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “I’m very proud with the
effort our kids showed in each of the three days we were here to give
us that chance.
“We saw so many breakthrough performances this
weekend from both of our teams. But this only the end of the third day
of a seven-day NCAA Championship. We really need to compete with that
same intensity and sense of urgency when we line it up for the first
time in Des Moines.”
With the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds now
in the books, the Tigers will now compete 12 events while advancing 17
entries into the national semifinals when they make their trip to Des
Moines, while the Lady Tigers will also compete in 12 events with 16
semifinalists at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
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