Favour Ofili shines as LSU wins six events at SEC championships; Tigers women take third, men seventh
The LSU women’s track and field team came up a little short in the race for the team title Saturday night at the Southeastern Conference outdoor championships.
Video of the 100 metres race
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUsGHaHLliY
Interview after the race
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYXBGJcylcI
Picture 1: LSU sprinter Favour Ofili competes at the SEC championships Saturday in Oxford, Miss.
But if coach Dennis Shaver could have somehow squeezed just one more race out of sprint sensation Favour Ofili, the Tigers probably would have come away with the biggest trophy from the meet held in Oxford, Mississippi.
Ofili scorched the Ole Miss track while winning the 100 and 200 meters, and running second leg on the Tigers’ winning 4×100-meter relay.
The sophomore’s gallant effort came up just short, however, when Florida pulled ahead over the final two events to claim the women’s title with 107 points.
Arkansas was second with 103 points and LSU was third with 96½, while Kentucky (85) and Texas A&M (74) rounded out the top five.
Arkansas won the men’s crown with 121 points while Alabama took second with 116. Tennessee (84), Florida (78) and Georgia (75) completed the top five. LSU was seventh with 70.
With Ofili scoring 22½ points by herself, LSU held a 1½-point advantage over Florida with 19 of 21 events in the books.
But the Gators got a second-place finish from Parker Valby in the 5,000 meters and clinched the title with a fifth-place effort from its 4×400 relay team to hold off Arkansas.
Ofili was one of the big stars when she outdueled Kentucky’s Abby Steiner in the two short sprints after teaming with Alia Armstrong, Tionna Beard-Brown and Thelma Davies to win the 4×100 relay over Kentucky. They ran in a season’s-best time of 42.59 seconds, while Kentucky ran a 42.63. It was the sixth win in a row for LSU in the event at the SEC meet.
Ofili later came back to win the 100 in 10.93 seconds while running into a slight headwind. That tied her personal record that she set in the LSU Invitational on April 30.
It was the 21st title in the event for the LSU women in 41 SEC championship meets. Steiner was second in 11.02 seconds.
Later, Ofili got the best of Steiner once again in the 200. Ofili, the collegiate record holder at 21.96 seconds, won with a 22.04 while Steiner settled for second at 22.07.
Armstrong provided the fourth win of the day for LSU in the 100-meter hurdles when she won with a slightly wind-aided time of 12.46 seconds.
Rival Grace Stark of Florida, who won the NCAA indoor 60-meter hurdles, fell while going over the sixth of 10 hurdles, but Armstrong had a clear lead by then and coasted home.
The men’s team had two wins Saturday as Eric Edwards Jr. made it a sweep for the Tigers in the short hurdles and Sean Bodie-Dixon took the triple jump crown.
Edwards won the 110 hurdles with a PR of 13.28 seconds, and Bodie-Dixon took the triple jump with a best of 53 feet, 8¼ inches.
Teammate Apalos Edwards gave LSU a 1-2 finish in the triple jump when he popped a personal-best 53-3½ on his final attempt to better his old PR by nearly 2½ feet.
The LSU women had two runner-up finishes Saturday as Lisa Gunnarsson was second in the pole vault at 14-7¼, and Michaela Rose ran a strong race in the 800 final to post a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 02.49 seconds.
Rose’s time bumped the freshman up from ninth to seventh on LSU’s all-time list in the event.
Katy-Ann McDonald was third in the 1,500 meters, with her time of 4:12.30 bettering her old school record of 4:13.07 that she set at the Bryan Clay Invitational last month.
McDonald also finished fourth in the 800 (2:03.09) and Amber Hart was fourth in the discus (176-3).
Back on the men’s side, Dorian Camel produced a pair of third-place finishes in the short sprints. His time of 10.11 seconds in the 100 was slightly better than his old PR of 10.13, but it moved him from 10th to seventh on LSU’s all-time list.
He later was third in the 200 with a 20.43.
