LSU Hurdle Dominance Yet To Be Matched

In 1989, the LSU women’s program was early in its record 11-year run of team titles at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, but its hurdling group was building a legacy that has yet to be matched.

Tananjalyn Stanley led a 1-2 LSU finish in the 100-meter hurdles at the 1989 NCAA Championships, topping an event dominance that only LSU itself has matched or exceeded.

Stanley – her first name is pronounced “tuh-NAN-juh-lynn” – clocked a meet-record 12.70 to win by 0.25 seconds over freshman teammate Cinnamon Sheffield, whose 12.95 made LSU the first school with two sub-13 hurdlers in the same race.

Stanley had shown her talent earlier in the year, winning the NCAA Indoor 55-meter hurdle title in a collegiate record 7.47 and by 0.22 seconds – still the largest margin by a female hurdler at any indoor NCAA distance.

The hurdle group at LSU showed even more dominance in 1990, placing four in the event’s NCAA final for the only time in meet history. Though a repeat victory eluded the Lady Tigers – Arizona State’s Lynda Tolbert won – Sheffield and Stanley (now recovering from knee surgery) led a 2-3-6-7 finish for 19 points, one more than LSU’s 1989 total of 18 in the event.

A year later, LSU would increase its event total in the NCAA meet to 22, thanks to the newest members of the scoring crew in Dawn Bowles and Mary Cobb.

Then in 1991, Bowles led yet another 1-2 LSU finish – the only other in the event besides LSU’s in 1989 – but this time it was actually a 1-2-5 finish as Bowles won in a wind-aided 12.70, matching Stanley’s MR. Cobb – who had won the NCAA Indoor hurdles in March – followed in 12.97, with Sheffield again scoring as the group amassed a 22-point total that remains the highest of any hurdle group in meet history – men or women.

At this point in history, LSU claimed the most sub-13 hurdlers – three with legal wind and four under all conditions at a time when no other program had more than two in either category.

No program ever matched any of the NCAA women’s 100-meter hurdle point totals LSU amassed in 1989-91.

Bowles and Sheffield scored again in 1992 (2-4) as each contributed to additional LSU legacies – part of a winning NCAA team, and each as a member of a winning 4 x 100 squad.