The Louisiana State University Invitational was the last outdoor regular-season meet of the season for the Gophers women’s track and field.
Multiple Gophers moved up in the Big Ten rankings while setting new PRs. Redshirt sophomore triple jumpers Diarra Sow and Brooke Moore are one of five duos to hold the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in any event in the Big Ten.
Sow said her aspirations for this meet and for herself were really high.
“I really have a lot of expectations coming to track, especially for this outdoor meet, my goals are really high,” Sow said. “I was hoping to have a big PR because I knew I was ready.”
Moore said she did not expect the LSU invitational to go as well as it did.
Moore set a personal record in the triple jump, earning her the No. 2 spot in the conference.
This is Moore’s first time being ranked this high, and it will be her first time at Hayward Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. Sow and her are working to not give in to their nerves.
“I think that me and Diarra will have to do a little bit of getting out of our heads,” Moore said. “We both get in our heads really fast, so we have to make sure that circumstances don’t change what we came to do.”
Sow said that the pressure got to her last Big Ten Championship. She said she went to Hayward Stadium for last year’s NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and though it was not her favorite performance, she was not in her head too much.
The LSU Invitational also saw success from the Gophers in the 400-meter hurdles and the 100-meter hurdles.
Redshirt freshman Kennedy Martinson set a lifetime best along with senior Maja Maunsbach, who posted the fifth-fastest 100-meter hurdle time by a Swedish woman.
Graduate student Dyandra Gray set a lifetime best in the 400-meter hurdles. She PR’d in back-to-back meets and now sits at sixth in Gophers history.
Gray was not happy about her performance in the California meets and went to the last meets of the season, trying to amend that.
“I had a really terrible weekend in California the week before,” Gray said. “So it was more about rest and then trying to make up for the last week of regular season competition.”
Gray said she was surprised that she set a personal record at LSU because it was not a good technical race. She added that the team and her performances at LSU will help them succeed at the Big Ten Championship.
“It’s going to give me confidence going into Big Ten because I feel good. I feel lighter, and I feel more rested now,” Gray said. “For the team, I feel like we all felt better this week, the weekend, which is good. It’s good to feel good on the back end of the season.”
