Norwood finished 3rd in 400, 4x400 meter relay

LSU’s Vernon Norwood finished third in the 400-meter run, while he and teammates also finished third in the 4x400-meter relay in action Friday and Saturday at the 2014 NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Oregon’s Hayward Field.
Friday, Norwood, a 2011 Morgan City High School alum, earned the third-place finish in the 400-meter run after clocking in at 45.54 to finish behind Texas A&M’s Deon Lendore and Oregon’s Mike Berry, who finished first and second at 45.02 and 45.07, respectively.
Norwood accounted for six of the Tigers’ first 12 points of the weekend.
In Friday’s race, Norwood was running in fifth place off the final curve but used a strong finish to emerge from the field and finish in third place.
Norwood came up just one spot shy of matching his indoor performance when he scored the NCAA Indoor silver medal as one of the nation’s elite 400-meter sprinters for 2014.
Friday’s final turned into a dead heat for the title between Lendore, the reigning NCAA Indoor champion, and Berry.
Behind Norwood were Pittsburgh’s Brycen Spratling (45.49), Florida’s Najee Glass (45.63), Florida State’s James Harris (45.64), Notre Dame’s Christopher Giesting (46.10) and Florida’s Hugh Graham Jr. (46.65).
“Coming off that bend, I knew I had to hit it hard and finish the race,” Norwood said in an LSU news release. “I tried not to look at anybody else, just tried to focus on finishing the race and do the best I could for my team. At these meets, you get all kinds of conditions. You just have to prepare for it. There was a headwind (on the backstretch); we all got the same wind. We just had to compete hard and see who wanted it more.”
Video of Friday’s 400-meter final is available at www.lsusports.net.
Saturday, the Tigers’ 4x400-meter relay’s third-place finish concluded the Tigers’ action in Eugene.
The Tigers finished with a seasonal best of 3 minutes, 1.60 seconds.
Junior Quincy Downing set the pace for the Tigers with a strong leadoff leg before handing off to sophomore Darrell Bush at the first exchange. Bush kept the Tigers close to Texas A&M and Florida with a blistering second leg before handing off to sophomore Cyril Grayson at the second exchange. Grayson turned in a 45.14-second split for the third leg before Norwood brought the Tigers home in 44.52 for the sixth-fastest time in school history at 3:01.60.
Texas A&M finished just one one-hundredth of a second off LSU’s collegiate record of 2:59.59 set in 2005 with a winning run of 2:59.60, followed by Florida in second place with a runner-up time of 3:00.42.
Also finishing the relay were Western Kentucky (3:03.99) in fourth place, Arizona State (3:04.11) in fifth place, Nebraska (3:04.14) in sixth place, Baylor (3:04.89) in seventh place and Arkansas (3:07.26) in eighth place.
The LSU men’s team finished tied for fourth place with USC with 29 points, while the Lady Tigers finished sixth with 34 points.
Oregon and Texas A&M won the men’s and women’s titles, respectively, with scores of 88 and 75 points.
“I’m so very proud of the effort showed by our athletes and our staff over the seven days of this NCAA track meet,” LSU head coach Dennis Shaver said in a news release. “We had a great three days in Jacksonville two weeks ago and a really outstanding four days here in Eugene this weekend across the board to get to this point. These last four days have really shown how hard we’ve worked as a team since the very start of fall training to perform at our very best when it mattered the most. I’m proud of everyone for the effort they gave our program here this weekend.
“It’s not always perfect, and there may have been some bumps along the way, but we can all be proud of what this group has achieved this season. They were outstanding during these NCAA Championships.”