March 12, 2011
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By Miquel Jacobs
Media Relations Assistant
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – In a return to the facility where she won her first national title back in 2009, South Carolina senior Lakya Brookins ended her collegiate indoor career in the strongest of forms by winning the 60-meter dash at a collegiate record time of 7.09 Saturday night at Texas A&M University. She can now officially call herself the “fastest woman in the world” as her time is the top 60-meter dash run in 2011 by anyone.
The Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium has been kind to the Gamecock senior and Bowerman award candidate. As a sophomore in 2009, the year the facility opened, Brookins ran a facility, meet and school record 7.13 to win the national championship. Two years later, Brookins again ran 7.13, but this time it came in her Friday night preliminary run. As it turns out, she was saving her best for last with her blazing time of 7.09 not only cementing new facility, NCAA meet and school records, but also tying the 10-year old collegiate record that was set by Angela Williams of Southern California on March 11, 2001.
The national title is the second 60-meter dash title in Gamecock history – both by Brookins – and gave the Gamecock women 10 points to finish 23rd in the overall team standings. It is the 14th top 25 finish in Frye’s 15 years as head coach of the women’s team.
Senior Michael Zajac earned his best career placement in the men’s weight throw and earned his fourth All-America honor by taking seventh overall with a toss of 67’11 ½ (20.71m). The senior hit his top mark on his final throw of the competition to move up from the eighth spot, which is what he placed last year. The Gamecock men finished tied for 57th with two points overall.
South Carolina begins its outdoor season next weekend when the team travels to the annual Shamrock Invitational hosted by Coastal Carolina. Fans can watch Lakya Brookins’s collegiate record run next Wednesday, March 16, from 1:30-3 p.m. on ESPN2 in an NCAA Indoor Championships highlight show.
