Colorado State's Shadae Lawrence takes bronze at NCAA Track and Field Championships
AUSTIN, Texas — Much is still ahead of Colorado State's Shadae Lawrence in her discus throwing career, but the Colorado State portion ended with a disappointing third place finish at the NCAA Track and Field Championships Saturday afternoon.
Long after her competition ended, long after all of her competitors had gone to the stands to watch the remainder of the meet, Lawrence sat on the infield, prolonging her final moments in a Rams uniform.
A bronze medal is plenty of consolation, but for a woman who came in as the national leader, who could have won if she had matched her season's best of 213-feet, 5-inches, who won this meet in 2017 and was runner-up last year for Kansas State, taking third in 197-11 wasn't the end she hoped for.
Lawrence transferred in last summer from Kansas State.
"I'm satisfied with my season, but I didn't want it to end this way," Lawrence said almost an hour after her competition ended. "Technique, I'm still working on my technique, I have a new coach and I'm still working on technique. I wasn't in sync with it today."
Lawrence had a solid opener of 192-5 that had her second, but she didn't improve on her next two throws (181-5 and 177-10) and went into the finals in fourth. She moved up to third on her fifth throw, but her day didn't quite come together like she envisioned.
Iowa's Laulauga Tausaga (207-6) and Florida State's Shanice Love (205-8) overcame hot, humid, still-wind conditions to set personal bests and take the top two spots.
"She had every intention of winning an NCAA championship, she's going to be disappointed," CSU coach Brian Bedard said. "She has the experience to do that, we had the season set up to do that, but give it to the girls that took first and second, I thought they competed extremely well, they hit lifetime bests, Shadae was not at her best today.
"That happens in competitions. She gave it her best effort today, it just didn't quite line up. Technically she had a few issues going on she couldn't get resolved. She was pressing a little too hard and it didn't go the way we wanted."
The first half of the discus competition took place during the women's triple jump, where Shadae's twin Shardia Lawrence of Kansas State, who had the nation's sixth best jump coming in, was a surprise national champion.
"I don't know how to react right now, she worked so hard, I'm happy for her," Shadae Lawrence said.
Kelcey Bedard, daughter of Brian Bedard, concluded her career with a throw of 179-10 to earn 11th place and second-team All-American honors.
Bret Bloomquist may be reached at 546-6359; firstname.lastname@example.org; @bretbloomquist on Twitter.
Fort Collins ties to NCAA track and field championships
Destinee Rocker (CSU): Placed 19th in a time of 13.37 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles.
Tarynn Sieg (CSU): Placed 24th in discus with a throw of 48-feet, 10-inches.
Shadae Lawrence (CSU): Placed third in the discus with a top throw of 197-feet, 11-inches.
Kelcey Bedard (CSU): Placed 11th in the discus with a top throw of 179-feet, 10-inches.
Adam Dawson (CSU): Finished 17th in discus with a top throw of 181-feet.
Hunter Powell (CSU): Forced to withdraw after one event following an ankle injury suffered in practice last week.
400-meter relay (CSU): Rocker, MaryBeth Sant, Lauren Gale, Jessica Ozoude placed 16th in a school-record time of 43.92 seconds to earn second-team All-American honors.
Carly Paul (Brown): Poudre grad placed 14th in the heptathlon with 5,535 points.