KINGSTON, Jamaica- Brianna Lyston of Louisiana State University (LSU) stayed on course to defend her women’s 60m title at the South East Conference Indoor Championships being hosted by Texas A&M University after she qualified for the final, running 7.17 seconds in the preliminaries on Friday.

Lyston who also won the NCAA title last year, had the same time as the University of Tennessee’s Layla Anderson who was running her life time best while Carleta Bernard of the University of Texas also qualified for Saturday’s final after running 7.32 seconds to win her heat.

Vashaun Vascianna of the University of Arkansas ran a massive personal best 7.52 seconds to lead the qualifiers for the men’s 60m hurdles final, beating his previous best of 7.63 seconds set earlier in February. It’s the fifth fastest time ever by a Jamaican, third best in the NCAA so far this season and a facility record beating the 7.57 seconds set earlier this year by another Jamaican, Demario Prince of Baylor.

Jaheim Stern of LSU also advanced, running a lifetime best 7.62 seconds

Dejanae Oakley of the University of Georgia also qualified for the women’s 400m with 52.20 seconds.

NCAA defending champion Rivaldo Marshall of the University of Arkansas is through to Saturday’s final of the men’s 800m after he ran 1:48.95 seconds in the preliminaries, second best overall. He was joined by Kemar Farquharson of Texas A&M who won his heat in 1:49.82 seconds but Tyrice Taylor of Arkansas who ran 1:49.73 seconds, for second in his heat, failed to advance.

At the Big 12 Indoors Championships at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, Baylor’s Demar Francis qualified first in the men’s 200m, running 20.47 seconds in Friday’s preliminaries.

At the Mountain West Indoors being held at the Albuquerque Convention Center, Albuquerque New Mexico, Shaquena Foote of San Diego State, led the qualifying in both the women’s 200m and the 400m. She ran 23.28 seconds for the 200m in which she was third last year and clocked 52.73 seconds in the 400m where she is the defending champion.

Meanwhile, Adrienne Adams of Auburn University was third in the women’s weight throw at the SEC Championships, throwing a big personal best 21.41 seconds, well past her previous best of 20.00m.

At the Big 10 meet being hosted by the University of Indiana, Juliet Smith of St John’s University was third in the women’s weight throw with 16.95m.

Safin Wills of the University of Oregon, placed fourth in the men’s long jump with 7.61m while Kavian Kerr of the University of Nebraska was seventh with 7.49m.

Fabrienne Foster of the University of North Texas, threw a personal best 19.09m for second in the women’s weight throw at the American Athletics Conference Indoor Championships held in Birmingham, Alabama, beating her previous best of 18.76m set two weeks ago. Corey Ottey of the University of South Florida was third in the men’s high jump with 2.02m.

-Paul A Reid