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.
