Arkansas wins second consecutive title
Glenn and Anning win events for Razorbacks in NCAA Indoor Champs
As expected, the University of Arkansas scored a truckload of points in the women’s 400 meters in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships at the TRACK at New Balance in Brighton, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
But high jumper Rachel Glenn and hurdler Destiny Huven played critical roles in the Razorbacks winning their second consecutive team title and fourth in the last five championship meets.
Glenn, a junior transfer from South Carolina who did not compete last year due to a knee injury, won the women’s high jump by equalling the collegiate record of 2.00 meters (6 feet 6¾ inches) on Saturday afternoon well before the track events began a few hours later.
Huven, a senior transfer from Wisconsin, placed fourth in the 60-meter high hurdles with a personal best of 7.99 seconds after senior Amber Anning had won the women’s 400 in 50.79 while leading Arkansas to a 1-2-3 finish two events earlier.
The sweep of the 400, which no team had ever accomplished before, accounted for 24 points in the meet in which the top eight finishers in each event were awarded points on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. But the 15 combined points from Glenn and Huven were also critical as Arkansas defeated runner-up Florida, 55-50, for the team title.
Georgia finished third with 33 points, followed by Oregon with 31, and Mississippi with 30.
The Razorbacks appeared to have won the team championship with a 65-50 win over Florida, but their victory in the women’s 1,600 relay was later nullified because they were disqualified.
“It started today with the high jump. And obviously the 400 meters, 1-2-3, and then in the 200, 6-7-8, and Destiny Huven stepped up in the hurdles,” first-year head coach Chris Johnson said when John Anderson of ESPN asked him what went right for the Razorbacks. “It was an amazing day, and we knew we had to have an amazing day to pull this thing off.”
Glenn, who became the 10th American woman to clear two meters in the high jump, upset Lamarra Distin of Texas A&M in winning the event.
Glenn cleared 1.75 (5-8¾), 1.80 (5-10¼), 1.85 (6-0¾), 1.88 (6-2), 1.91 (6-3¼), and 1.94 (6-4¼) on her first attempts.
After needing two tries to get over a then-personal best of 1.97 (6-5½), she was in second place when the bar was raised to 2.00 because Distin had cleared 1.97 on her first attempt.
However, Glenn made her first attempt at 2.00, and when Distin missed all three of her tries at that height, Glenn won her second NCAA title to go with the outdoor championship she had won for South Carolina in 2021.
Although Glenn missed all three of her attempts at 2.02 (6-7½), her win avenged a loss to Distin in the SEC meet when the senior from Jamaica had raised the collegiate indoor record to 2.00.
The 400 was the next event in the women’s meet that involved competitors from Arkansas and Anning, junior Nichisha Pryce, and senior Rosey Effiong met some high expectations by sweeping the top three places.
Pryce won the first section in 51.00, and when Anning and Effiong finished first and second in the second section with times of 50.79 and 51.03, respectively, the Arkansas trio had the 1-2-3 finish it was shooting for.
“This is a special group,” Johnson said of Anning, Pryce, and Effiong. “To be able to go 1-2-3 in the NCAA system is nothing short of phenomenal and we’re just excited. Hard work does pay off.”
Those same three weary sprinters came back 25-30 minutes after the 400 to compete in the 200. And although Effiong (23.10), Pryce (23.18), and Anning (23.62) placed sixth, seventh, and eighth with times that were way off their personal bests, they scored an all-important six points in the event.
An Arkansas team of Kaylynn Brown, Joanne Reid, Sanu Jallow, and Effiong then held off South Carolina to win the third section of the 1,600 relay with a time of 3:25.99 before later being disqualified because its leadoff runner took two or more steps on or outside of her lane.
Florida, which had won the 2022 title before finishing third behind Arkansas and Texas last year, was led by the performances of junior Parker Valby and senior Grace Stark on Saturday.
Valby won the women’s 3,000 meters in a personal best of 8:41.50 a night after she had lowered her collegiate record to 14:52.79 in the 5,000.
The NCAA cross country champion, Valby had been heavily favored to win the 5,000. But she was expected to get a real battle from Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame in the 3,000 as the Fighting Irish grad student had run 8:40.42, the second-fastest collegiate time in history, in early December.
Although Valby is known as a front runner, she was content to run in second place when Markezich went through 1,000 meters in 2:55.60 and 2,000 meters 5:53.38. But she moved into the lead shortly after that and defending NCAA steeplechase champion Markezich was unable to mount a serious challenge to Valby, who ran her last kilometer in 2:48.04 while recording the third-fastest time in collegiate history.
Markezich ran 8:46.71 to finish second for the second consecutive year and Doris Lemngole of Alabama placed third in a personal best of 8:50.70 after finishing fourth in the 5,000 on Friday.
While Valby’s victory in the 3,000 gave Florida 10 points, Stark scored a total of 11 by finishing second in the 60 hurdles after placing sixth in the 60 a half hour earlier.
Stark clocked 7.20 in the 60 in a race that was won by LSU sophomore Brianna Lyston in 7.03 and she ran 7.81 in the 60 hurdles in a contest in which USC junior Jasmine Jones placed first in 7.77.
Lyston’s time cut four hundredths of a second off her previous best and moved her into second behind Julien Alfred of Texas — at 6.94 from last year — on the all-time collegiate performer list while giving her a comfortable margin of victory over second-place Kalia Jackson of Georgia, who ran 7.08.
Lyston’s time also moved her to sixth on the all-time Jamaican performer list.
Jones’s performance moved her to third on the all-time collegiate performer list in the 60 hurdles, as well as to ninth on the all-time U.S. list, and it came in a race in which she trailed Stark over the first hurdle, caught her by the second barrier and pulled away from her after that.
Several other athletes turned in performances that rank then among the top 10 on the all-time collegiate lists in their events.
Sophomore Juliette Whittaker of Stanford won a thrilling 800 when she overtook junior Michaela Rose of LSU in the final 25 meters of the race while recording a 1:59.53 to 1:59.81 victory.
The times by Whittaker and Rose were the fourth- and fifth-fastest in collegiate history and Whittaker moved to third on the all-time collegiate performer list with her effort.
Rose, a classic front runner, brought the field through 200 meters in 27.91 seconds, 400 in 58.33, and 600 in 1:28.67.
Whittaker, who finished second behind teammate Roisin Willis in last year’s meet, was close behind Rose at the end of the first three laps. But she drew even closer around the final turn and then went past Rose midway down the home straightaway.
“I really wanted to try and stay on her as long as I could,” Whittaker said to Anderson. “And then just coming off that last corner… I was really trying to focus on my form and getting my knees up and just sprinting as hard as I could.”
Junior Maia Ramsden of Harvard won the women’s mile after finishing 10th in the 1,500 meters for her native New Zealand in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, last Sunday.
Junior Kimberly May of Providence led the field through the 409-meter mark in 67.61 seconds, the 809-meter mark in 2:16.01, and the 1,009-meter mark in 2:49.52.
Ramsden, the reigning NCAA outdoor champion in the 1,500, took the lead after that and kept pulling away from her competitors for the remainder of the race. Her time of 4:25.13 was the third-fastest in collegiate history.
Sophomore Billah Jepkirui of Oklahoma State finished second in 4:27.14 and May placed third in 4:27.36 as the two of them moved to sixth and ninth on the all-time collegiate performer list.
JaMeesia Ford of South Carolina capped her superb freshman season by winning the 200 and anchoring the Gamecocks’ first-place team in the 1,600 relay.
Ford’s time of 22.34 gave her a comfortable margin of victory over Mississippi senior McKenzie Long, who placed second in 22.51. It also bettered her world U-20 (under 20) record of 22.36 and strengthened her hold on fourth on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Ford ran a 50.74-second anchor leg in the 1,600 relay in a race in which South Carolina initially finished second to Arkansas with a time of 3:26.20 before moving up to first after the Razorbacks were disqualified because their leadoff runner took two or more steps on or outside of her lane.
Senior Ruta Lasmane of Texas Tech had the three longest jumps in the triple jump and her best of 14.47 (47-5¾) moved her to fourth on the all-time collegiate performer list and was a Latvian national indoor record.
Lasmane’s first jump of 13.96 (45-9¾) would have been good enough to win the competition and she hit a personal best of 14.24 (46-8¾) in the second round before topping that mark with her 14.47 effort in the third round. She fouled on her last three jumps.
Emilia Sjostrand of San Jose State finished second at 13.72 (45-0¼), followed by Mikeisha Welcome of Georgia at 13.71 (44-11¾).
Mya Lesnar of Colorado State edged fellow junior Jaida Ross of Oregon for the shot put title.
Ross had taken the lead with a put of 18.30 (60-0¼) in the first round.
Lesnar was in seventh place with a best of 16.97 (55-8¼) after the first three rounds, but she unleashed a personal best of 18.53 (60-9½) on her fourth attempt and it was enough to top Ross’ best of 18.47 (60-7¼), which also came in the fourth round.
Jalani Davis of Mississippi finished third at 18.15 (59-6¾) after winning her second consecutive title in the 20-pound weight throw on Thursday.