NCAA Champs Day Four Dispatch: Sutherland, Lemngole Shatter NCAA Records + Kosgei Sweeps 10,000m/5000m Titles

By Keenan Baker

It’s the final day of the NCAA Championships, and I’m sad to see it end. It’s been a joy doing these recaps and attending these meets, trying to take in each and every second to share with everyone else. 

The NCAAs are great meets, great racing, and well worth all the time and attention spent in these newsletters and beyond. In more than a few events, world leading times are set and records are broken. It’s exhilarating. It’s exciting. It’s exceptional. It’s the women’s finals—let’s get into it!

12:30pm – Women’s Discus

I’m going to shout out my co-contributor, Paul Hof-Mahoney, for his help with the throws statistics. I had no clue that the first, second, third, and fourth place throws were all meet records for their respective distances, all achieved in the same meet. (There’s going to be a lot of that today—this 2025 women’s meet was historic.)

I’ll rattle off the distances from fourth to first, for an idea of the scale.

Fourth place was held by Caisa-Marie Lindfors of Cal, who threw 62.57m for a personal best. The senior from California and Swedish World Athletics Championship competitor came into the meet with a 61.52m personal best—but no longer! 

Third place was Shelby Frank of Texas Tech, who threw a personal best of 63.37m. The personal best of over four feet came after she took second in the hammer throw two days prior, capping off a spectacular championship for the Red Raider.

Second place was Alida Van Daalen of Florida, a Paris Olympian for the Netherlands, who threw 64.94m for second place. When asked about how it felt to achieve her best finish in NCAAs at the best NCAA final ever, Van Daalen said it was like “getting silver with a golden rim.”

And first place was Cierra Jackson of Fresno State, throwing 65.82m in the first round to take the win. It’s now the championship record, a huge personal best, and the first time Fresno State won an individual title at the outdoor NCAA Championships—ever. 

Jackson took her final victory lap around the track with the biggest smile on her face. I can’t imagine why. 

3:30pm – Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump 

Personal best from Sofia Iukashina, the Texas A&M freshman who came into this meet ranked first in the nation in the heptathlon. Season’s best for Pippi Lotta Enok of Oklahoma, who came into this meet ranked second in the nation. Jadin O’Brien, the Notre Dame senior, finished 0.01m off of her season’s best of 6.16m.  

Those are three athletes that finished 1-2-3 in the final standings and the three athletes that were locked in an extremely close battle over the final day. O’Brien was, at that point, only 51 points behind Lotta Enok. 

4:45pm – Women’s Heptathlon Javelin 

And it stayed similarly locked in place after the javelin. Lotta Enok’s season best for the javelin was 47.32m, second in the entire field to Claire McNamara of Michigan, but finished in fourth with a throw of 42.89m. That opened the door for O’Brien to make up some ground, throwing 42.75m (only 0.79m off her season’s best), and finishing 0.14m behind Lotta Enok. Sofia Cosculluela of Washington won the event in a personal best throw of 48.97m.

Going into the final round, Lotta Enok and O’Brien were separated by only 54 points. The tight race would come down to the final race of the day, the 800m held later. 

5:30pm – Women’s High Jump Finals

The top four women’s high jumpers all achieved either season’s best or personal bests, with Elena Kulichenko of Georgia prevailing with a 1.96m leap. Kulichenko tied for the indoor title with Texas Tech’s Temitope Adeshina (who finished off her season’s best with a mark of 1.87m to take fifth), and competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics, placing seventh there. 

As the jumpers were introduced, I was struck by the quality and depth of the field. So many Olympians and national record holders, so many school and conference record holders! Alyssa Jones of Stanford doubled back from her second place in the long jump to finish fourth in the high jump—she came into the meet ranked “only” in 16th, with a personal best of 1.84m. It’s now 1.90m.

If people were betting on anyone it would’ve been between Kulichenko and Adeshina, the two Olympians, but that didn’t mean the competition was any less fierce. 

5:50pm – Women’s Collegiate Wheelchair 100m Finals

I felt like I was getting déjà vu in the women’s collegiate wheelchair 100m championship. Once again, an Illinois athlete got out to a blazing fast start and didn’t let go of it. This time, the gap was even larger between first and second place, as Hannah Dederick of Illinois placed with a time of 16.50, ahead of Arizona’s Chelsea Stein in 17.99. 

Dederick competed in three events in the Paris Paralympic games, taking fourth in the 400m, sixth in the 100m, and 7th in the 800m. She also competed in Tokyo, taking fourth in the 100m and 10th in the 400m. 

When they introduced Dederick over the loudspeaker, it abundantly clear the accolades cleared the rest of the field’s—and kept going. And this was a field with other Paralympians, too! When she crossed the finish line, Dederick registered almost zero reaction. It was another day in the office. 

6:02pm – Women’s 4x100m Relay

USC was number one coming into the meet, and they left number one. 

It was a season’s best 42.22 that did it for the Trojans, just holding off a hard-charging Jameesia Ford and the South Carolina Gamecocks. This wasn’t an upset, nor was it unexpected, but it’s always good to see a sprint relay race go to plan—no batons dropped, no DQs. Florida’s anchor, star freshman hurdler Habiba Harris, pulled up midway through on the last leg, which was hard to see. The Florida team has been slammed with injuries all season, indoors and outdoors, and the championships were no exception. 

6:10pm – Women’s Triple Jump 

In preparing to cover the triple jump, I checked the start lists online. 

Did a double take. 

Then a triple take. 

How in the world did three women have the same season’s best of 14.01m in the triple jump? This is a field event that’s three legs worth of jumping—so much room for variation! It did appear like Oklahoma’s Agur Dwol actually jumped 14.02m at the SEC Championships, but still. That’s a rare amount of parity in an event that can stretch just under 50 feet. 

Unlike last night, I highly doubted that Dwol, Winny Bii of Texas A&M, and Shantae Foreman of Clemson were going to tie in the finals. But, as far as I knew, it was a toss-up. 

At the end of the day, Bii took the top spot with a jump of 13.96m in the first round. Second place finisher, Emilia Sjostrand of San Jose State, jumped an extremely consistent six rounds. She went 13.87, 13.73, 13.78, 13.44, 13.84, and 13.88m—holding second place for the entire competition. In fact, all top four places (Bii, Sjostrand, Dwol, and Foreman) held their spot in the championships the entire way through—it was Sjostrand who happened to spoil the party.

6:11pm – Women’s 1500m

I picked a stressful spot to sit today as a 1500m fan. 

In the second row of the stands, Washington teammates sat directly to my left, cheering for Sophie O’Sullivan and Chloe Foerster. 

Providence teammates sat behind my left shoulder, cheering for Kimberley May.

Maggi Congdon’s family and boyfriend sat behind my right shoulder, cheering for the NAU athlete.

An Oregon contingent filled the whole stadium, but also directly to the left of the Providence teammates, cheering Silan Ayyildiz, Klaudia Kasmierska, and Mia Barnett. 

And Virginia had a crew in the row directly in front of me to my left, cheering for Margot Appleton.

Lindsey Butler of Virginia Tech led the field through the first 600 meters, before being passed by O’Sullivan. Congdon joined her in the front, as both athletes went shoulder to shoulder through 1200m. Behind them was South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra, Ayyildiz and Kazmierska both making big moves to pass on the outside.

Appleton unleashed her lethal quick, but it was too late. Nobody had a gear like O’Sullivan, and she finished a full second in front of her next closest competitors in Appleton and Congdon. Her closing lap of 58.43 was more than enough to break the field and take the win. 

As a side note: Washington’s Sophie O’Sullivan is probably in the top three most quotable athletes at these NCAAs. 

On the tactical differences between the men’s and women’s 1500m: “I mean, to be fair, you won’t see the women doing any silly shit like that, though.”

On how she felt about the win (children, again, close your ears): “Pretty fucking happy!”

On the team score, talking to her teammates and all of us in the stands after the race: “We might as well end the meet here and call in a lightning delay or something before Georgia cleans up.” - Washington was a point ahead of Georgia in the standings, with 27 to the Bulldogs 26. 

6:24pm – Women’s 3000m Steeplechase

Personal Best. 

Collegiate Lead.

Meet Record. 

Collegiate Record.

Sub-nine minutes.

11th fastest all time. 

Doris Lemngole took the lead from what felt like the gun, and didn’t even think about relinquishing it. The Alabama sophomore ran an extremely strong race, burning out any semblance of a kick from BYU’s Lexy Halladay-Lowry. 

Lemngole increased the gap between her and her next competitors with each and every lap, closing in 67.98 to finish in a mind-boggling, earth-shattering, insanely quick time of 8:58.15. All the superlatives can’t do this race justice (11th fastest ALL TIME) and it was incredible to watch in person. 

Halladay-Lowry, for her part, ran an extremely quick race, breaking her PB by almost ten seconds to run 9:08.68. She tried her best to hang with Doris Lemngole, and it wasn’t until the last lap that people realized she might not kick to win. If there’s anything we learned from last night’s steeplechase, it’s that we should never doubt a BYU runner in second place with a lap to go. 

For her guts in running that race, she was rewarded with the seventh fastest time in United States history, and a time that would’ve placed her under the collegiate record… before this race. 

Angelina Napoleon, the NC State sophomore, ran solo for the last mile of the race and finished with a PB of over 11 seconds. She’s now the 13th fastest runner in American history, and qualified for the world championships with her run of 9:16.66. 

The top seven runners all ran personal bests. 

It’s not hyperbole to say that was the best collegiate steeplechase race in NCAA history.

6:42pm – Women’s 100m Hurdles

It would be overly negative to say the women’s 100m hurdles race was disappointing. 

I’m more frustrated that we weren’t able to see a showdown between Florida’s Habiba Harris, Texas’s Akala Garrett, UCLA’s Yanla Ndjip-Nyemeck, and Oregon’s Aaliyah McCormick.

Harris walked out to the track to start, but the reason she pulled up at the end of the 4x100m was the same reason she was unable to compete in the 100m hurdles. The number one hurdler in the nation was out. 

Ndjip-Nyemeck failed to record a result after falling over the first hurdle, and Garrett was disqualified after tripping over the penultimate hurdle and pushing the last with her hand. 

Which left McCormick, who won in 12.81, in front of an adoring Oregon home crowd. 

It doesn’t invalidate her success if a few of the other competitors failed to finish. She ran a great race and very well could’ve won had everyone been healthy/finished fully.

All athletes except for Ndjip-Nyemeck have at least one more year of eligibility left. A rematch feels like it’s in order. 

6:52pm – Women’s 100m Finals

After perfectly pristine wind conditions in the prelims, Mother Nature reversed course for the finals and granted the women’s sprinters a 1.4 m/s headwind. The weather was cooler, too, and the races were called back after their first start. Nobody was disqualified, but they had to start over. 

The end result was a race with lower times and higher suspense. 

The last-place finisher, Victoria Cameron of Tarleton State, had the best start of anyone in the field, but failed to hold onto her lead and instead wound up a part of the blanket finish across the line. It took a beat to figure out who won. I had no clue, until the video boards replayed. 

Samirah Moody of USC won in a time of 11.136, just three-thousandths of a second ahead of Jameesia Ford from University of South Carolina. The race for third was decided by sixth-thousandths of a second, but Anthaya Charlton of Florida finished just ahead of the top time qualifier coming into the race, Tima Godbless of LSU. 

7:02pm – Women’s 400m Finals

I said in my Day 2 recap that this would have major implications for Georgia’s team title hopes. Two runners qualified for the finals, and it was fairly obvious that Georgia was the title favorite coming in. 

It sure doesn’t hurt if your two runners in the final finish in first and second place. Aaliyah Butler, the Paris Olympian and gold-medalist as part of the 4x400m relay team, finished in a personal best time of 49.26. Her final time ends up as the collegiate leading time for the entire season. 

Her teammate, Dejanea Oakley, finished in second with her own personal best of 49.65—the ninth fastest time on the Jamaican all-time list and her first time breaking 50 seconds in the 400m. Both Bulldogs pulled away from the rest, the only two runners to break 50 and the only two runners to grab personal bests. It’s a combination of good coaching and great running that drove the Bulldogs to success in this event and (spoiler) the meet overall. 

7:14pm – Women’s 800m Finals

Michaela Rose did it again! 

She went out in 56 again, that is. The meet record holder from LSU ran her race, and for almost 700 meters, it seemed like it would pay off. 

As the main pack of Rose, BYU’s Meghan Hunter, Stanford’s Roisin Willis, and UNC’s Makayla Paige rounded the turn for home, it was anybody’s race. Willis made a big move on the outside, passing Hunter and Rose in lane two, and powered her way to the finish in a new meet record time of 1:58.13. Paige also broke 1:59, coming in second (GO HEELS) and the next three finishers (Hunter, Rose, and Lauren Tolbert of Duke) all finished under 2 minutes. 

The 800m in the NCAA has seen its highest level of talent ever over the past five or six years and, like Michaela Rose said, it took a record being broken to win the race (not the collegiate record, but that’s neither here nor there).

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Willis’s winding road to get to the top of the outdoor podium. She shared on Instagram and in interviews with Runner’s World about her struggles with adjusting to college, mental and physical. 

In a sport hyperfocused on optimizing one’s fullest potential, the desire to equate one’s own self worth with what they achieve is a constant. Willis’s willingness to open up makes her a beacon of light for many athletes in the same, or similar spots mentally. 

We see all these athletes running world class times and it’s easy to forget that they’re also in college, taking classes and dealing with all the hurdles of being human. Regardless of the result, Willis had a season of progress worth celebrating—it so happens that she also gets to celebrate a national title in the process. 

7:27pm – Women’s 400m Hurdle Finals

I wanted to write that Doris Lemngole’s 3000m steeplechase time was the most dominant race I saw throughout my four days at the NCAAs. But now I’m stuck, because Michigan’s Savannah Sutherland might share that crown. 

(We have a tendency to do that in track and field). 

Personal Best. Collegiate Lead. Meet Record. Collegiate Record. Ninth fastest All Time. 

And whose meet record did she beat in the process? None other than the fastest 400m hurdler in history, Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone. 

The seventh place hurdler in the Olympic Games for Canada found gear after gear after gear, running a very Mclaughlin-Levroneesque final 100m. No broken form. If anything, it looked like she sped up. My eyes kept darting back and forth between the clock and the track to see if I was going crazy. I wasn’t. 

In terms of World Athletics point scores, Lemngole’s steeplechase victory and Sutherland’s hurdles win are valued almost exactly the same (1249 to 1253). I can’t say one was better than the other—proportionally, each were far and away from the field, fields that had extremely talented athletes that might’ve won in years prior (Halladay-Lowry and Texas’s Akala Garrett).

It’s not every day a Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone record gets broken by anybody other than herself. When that happens, it’s a good sign that athlete is world class. 

7:37pm – Women’s 200m Finals

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the sprint times were less than stellar, but the races themselves were great. 

Jameesia Ford got her win (finally) after racing a grand total of seven times in a span of 48 hours. 4x100m (twice), 100m (twice), 200m (twice), and 4x400m (once). She deserved that win in the 200m, and even though she ran “only” 22.21, it was a herculean effort to take on all of those roles and she succeeded.

Madison Whyte of USC, the second fastest runner in the nation, finished only two hundredths of a second back from Ford, and right in front of her teammate Dajaz Defrand.

7:55pm – Women’s 5000m Finals

It’s funny Sophia O’Sullivan said the women would never do any of that “silly shit” and take races out slowly, because that’s exactly what I thought about when the women’s race came through the 1k in 3:21.97—right on the heels of a 85 second lap. 

It played right into the hands of those that were doubling, which felt like basically everyone in the field. Things didn’t string out until three laps to go, and once the bell lap hit, all the major contenders were still in attendance. 

Pamela Kosgei of New Mexico, the women’s 10,000m champ, ran the last lap in 64.48. It was enough to help Kosgei complete the double, finishing ahead of Boston University’s Vera Sjoberg, who did a double of her own in the 1500 and 5000.

Grace Hartman of NC State was there on the last lap, still split a 65.71 but faded to fifth. Her cheering section was great at varying the ways they could say how proud they were of her—“I’M SO PROUD OF YOU” and “YOU’RE UNSTOPPABLE” and the like—and they had every reason to be. Right behind Hartman was Paityn Noe, who ran another 5000/10,000m double extremely well. 

The way the women’s race played out gave us a lens into how the men’s race could’ve gone had Rocky Hansen not kept the pedal to the metal. Then again, Habtom Samuel got second in both, so maybe it would’ve gone the same way. 

Kosgei concluded one of the most dominant seasons a distance runner could have, winning both national titles and running 9:15 earlier in the season for the steeple, just for grins. 

8:21pm – Women’s 4x400m Finals

The 4x400m was Georgia’s victory lap, and with the title already wrapped up in a bow, they decided to take four of them.

Arkansas gave them a good fight, and to Rosey Effiong’s credit, she did split a 49.17 on the anchor leg. It’s too bad Aaliyah Butler managed to split 48.79 on her final leg, anchoring the Bulldogs to a win and a collegiate leading time of 3:23.62. 

Ford was scheduled to run anchor for the Gamecocks, but apparently was dealing with a hamstring strain since SECs, so she decided not to overdo it and only ran seven of the eight races she planned to run this weekend—South Carolina scratched the 4x400m in the process.

Georgia won by 26 points. ‘Nuff said. 

The Cooldown 

How fun was that! In case you didn’t notice through all of these recaps, I looked at most of these recaps through an intentionally rose-colored lens. There’s a lot of doom and gloom in the track and field world currently, with the House vs. NCAA settlement raising questions nobody truly can answer – yet. 

What’s the point? What’s the point of NCAAs if it’s just a pipeline to the pros for the best of the best? I alluded to my answer in my Day 2 Recap, but I’ll continue to say the same—track and field is about bringing people together. No, it’s not a highly revenue driven sport, and the NCAA is trending in the direction of becoming a fully revenue-driven enterprise. But there will always be runners. There will always be throwers. And there will always be the jumpers. 

There’s a reason why people tune into the Olympics every time it comes on. I’m not going to pretend like it’s not because of other sports, too, but people want to know who the fastest person in the world is. Who can run the fastest marathon. Who can throw things the farthest. There will always be that curiosity, and people need to capitalize on that curiosity. 

I come away from this NCAA meet feeling inspired, not simply because I watched track and field for four days straight. But because I saw people cheer their hearts out for everything from a 10,000m to a triple jump to a hammer throw to a 100m hurdles. Seriously—y’all should’ve seen the crowds outside of the hammer throw ring. Standing room only. 

And it wasn’t just lifelong track fans like my friend Andy, there were also kids with their parents decked out in Oregon and track and field gear. Even the toddlers were invested, taking breaks from racing their Hot Wheels to be quiet for the 4x100m, and cheering their hearts out. 

I don’t know what the solution is for track and field—that should be abundantly clear. But I do know that if people saw the sport in its fullest capacity—in person, and online at a higher frequency—so many more would become fans. That should be the goal at the end of the day—opening the doors for more people to compete, and for more people to see them compete. 

So I’m not going to knock Grand Slam Track or the Diamond League. I was in Eugene to cover NCAAs, and that’s what I’ll leave this with—the NCAA National Championships are, indeed, the best ever. 

I’m so glad I got to be there to see it, and share it with everyone. 

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