BATON ROUGE, La. – Saturday was a golden day for Southeastern Louisiana sophomore Dekayta Alex, freshman Justin Taylor and senior Alex Young as the trio came away with victories at the LSU Alumni Gold at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.

    "Great competition and the weather turned out to be pretty good," Southeastern head coach Sean Brady said. "It was kind of a mixed bag of performances. Some people responded really well and some did not. We have to regroup this week. It's not time to panic. We're still three weeks out (from the Southland Conference Championships). We need to get our focus back and get healthy. That really is the key at this point – staying healthy, recovering and trying to stay sharp."

    Southeastern is scheduled to compete in the Northwestern State Invitational next Saturday before wrapping up the regular season at the Ole Miss Classic on May 6. The Southland Championships are scheduled for May 12-14 in New Orleans.

    Young responded to a strong field in the hammer throw by winning with a mark of 234 feet, 2 inches. It was his second-best throw and third win of the outdoor season. Junior Michael Seither placed eighth with a mark of 171-9.

    Taylor eclipsed his previous best time in the 110-meter hurdles by .22 seconds in winning the "B" section in 14.72 seconds.

    Alex set a personal best in winning the "B" section of the 400-meter dash in 54.63 seconds. Senior Lekesha Jelks also ran a career-best in taking 12^th in 57.59.

    Alex and Jelks went on to join sophomore Jaslyn Bowman and junior Treshanna Taylor on the 4x400 relay which took eighth in a season-best 3 minutes, 45.91 seconds.

    Freshman Ebony Hills had a career-best 1:03.68 in placing fifth in the 400-meter hurdles after finishing sixth in the 100 hurdles in 14.69. Sophomore Lil-Ann Hochkeppler also established a personal best in placing ninth in the 400 hurdles in 1:04.91.

    Junior Daijah Washington tied Mississippi State's Justice Sims for fifth in the "B" section of the 100 meters with a time of 11.94 seconds. Washington also set a PR with a ninth-place time of 24.70 in the 200. Senior Kaelynn Smith was fifth in 24.33.

    The 4x100 relay of Washington, Smith, Bowman and sophomore Aareion Jackson took seventh in 46.20.

    In the field events, senior Addison Martinez cleared 12-2.5 for seventh in the pole vault. Junior Natalia Redondo was also seventh in the hammer at 172-8.

    On the men's side, senior Julian Maze jumped 48-2.75 to come in third in the triple jump.

    Sophomore Rodney Ruffin placed ninth in the long jump invitational at 21-3.5.

    Junior Albert Martinez broke his previous best in the 400 hurdles in coming in fifth in the "B" section in 53.93. Junior Dwayne Woodard was eighth in 54.14. Sophomore Tajh Lewis finished sixth in the 800 "B" section in 1:56.36.