A squad of Clemson Tigers from South Carolina roared into New York on Friday to compete for the first time in the two-day New Balance Invitational at The Armory and snatched team victory in the women's division by a huge margin.
From the start of the meet, the purple-and-orange clad women went on a roll and closed out the meet Saturday evening with 93 points to distance themselves from runners-up BYU with 64. Louisiana State University (LSU) finished third with 60 points, just half a point better than Texas A&M, fourth with 59.5. Arkansas (49) finished fifth and Baylor (44) was sixth.
The Tigers journeyed in, armed with the theme “Productive,” and what a production it was with outstanding quarter-miler Marlena Wesh, who broke her own school record in the event and grabbed one of the five NCAA automatic qualifying performances copped by Clemson.
Wesh, the defending ACC indoor champion in the event, had a previous best time of 52.88secs in the NCAA Championships last winter. On Friday, she clocked the fastest time in the preliminaries, and yesterday she led from the gun and cruised to 52.21, four tenths of a second ahead of her closest competitor. She later went on to anchor the women's 4x400m relay team to victory in 3mins, 35.58secs.
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Kwesi Peters photo
Jamaica's Riker Hylton of LSU
makes
a move to overtake Texas
A&M rival
in the 4x4
but just could not do it.
A&M went on to win.
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The Tigers will be back in action this weekend in two meets, the Tiger Paw Invitational at home and the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
On the men’s side, Texas A&M took the team title with 85 points to top 130 teams. Finishing behind the Aggie men were LSU with 75 points, Mississippi State (59), Texas (44) and Baylor (36) to round off the top five. It was the second title for the A&M men, who also won in 2010.
Aggie Henry Lelei was named outstanding male performer of the meet. He anchored the A&M distance medley relay to victory on Friday evening, then won the mile on Saturday, setting a school record with his 4:01.49 run.
Lelei, who bettered the school record of 4:04.16 set in 2000, beat back challenges from second place Paul Lagno of Albany, who finished in 4:01.86. Rico Loy of Iowa State placed third in 4:02.55.