TRACK AND FIELD / NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS : Louisiana State Women, Arkansas Men Are Winners

NEW ORLEANS —  Louisiana State clinched its seventh consecutive women’s team title at the NCAA track and field championships on Saturday night.

LSU won a rerun of the 400-meter relay it had won Friday night to clinch. The race was run again because some teams protested that they hadn’t been ready at the start. LSU won in 43.49 seconds, fastest in the world this year.

UCLA’s Dawn Dumble won the women’s shotput to help the Bruins to a third-place finish behind Wisconsin.

Dumble, a junior, won with a mark of 56 feet 4 inches. It was her second NCAA title; she won the 1992 indoor shotput title with a Pacific 10 Conference-record mark of 56-11 1/2.

“This is equal to winning the indoors,” she said. “I was a little more excited then because I had a great throw and today was a good throw. But I am just as happy to win it.”

Arkansas won its second consecutive men’s title and completed its record-tying third “triple crown”--a sweep of the cross-country, indoor and outdoor titles in the same season.

The UCLA men finished ninth and USC and Providence tied for 18th. The Bruins’ John Godina was second in the men’s shotput. The Trojans’ Jeff Laynes, who finished fifth in the 100 meters in the 1992 championships, was seventh in the event this year.

California’s Chris Huffins, who had a record first-day point total for the NCAA decathlon, won the event with 8,007 points, a 1993 collegiate best.