March 27, 2009

BATON ROUGE, La. - The first day of competition is complete at the LSU Relays. Several Tigers put up impressive marks and a handful also qualified during the preliminaries for the final races tomorrow.

"Weather was not as cooperative as we would have liked, but we can see that our kids are improving," said head coach Kevin Robinson. "We have some big final events tomorrow as well as a few big field events in the women's shot put and the triple jump."

One highlight performance from the field included sophomore Aaron Whetstone's performance in the long jump with a personal record mark of 7.32m (24-00.25). Sophomore Charlotte Abrahamsen competed in the javelin for the first time in 2009 and recorded a fourth-place mark of 41.79m (137-01). Freshman Inger Anne Froysedal placed seventh in the high jump with a height of 1.65m (5-05.00) while Jerome Leslie placed 11th on the men's side with a height of 1.90m (6-02.75).

"Aaron Whetstone did a great job today and was just short of a regional mark," said Robinson. "Charlotte also competed well in her first competition in the javelin this year. Steffen and Knut both had lifetime bests in the hammer and threw really well, but were unattached for us."

Memphis athletes Steffen Nerdal and Knut Syversen competed in the hammer throw, but unattached. Nerdal beat his personal best with a mark of 68.80m (225-09) while Syversen also bested a personal record with a toss of 57.38m (188-03). Syversen also competed in the shot put and recorded a mark of 16.57m (54-04.50).

LaBritney Horton qualified for the finals in both the 100m hurdles with a preliminary time of 14.14 and a 400m hurdles time of 1:02.97. Also in the 400m hurdle finals is Holland Thomas who ran a 1:05.19 time in the event. LaBritney Horton also qualified for the 100m dash finals with a time of 12.06. The men's sprint medley relay posted a seventh-place performance with a time of 3:30.76.

"Hopefully we can build on that and get ourselves ready for the rest of the spring," said Robinson.

The final day of competition will commence at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning with the field events beginning first and the track events following at 11:00 a.m.