BYU’s Lexy Lowry destroyed the national record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at Saturday’s NCAA track and field championships in Eugene, Oregon.

Unfortunately for her, someone else broke it ahead of her.

Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, a sophomore from Kenya, crossed the finish line with an astounding time of 8:58.15. Not only did Lemngole run the fastest time in the world this year by 4 ½ seconds, but it was also the ninth fastest time ever.

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She also broke her own collegiate record by nearly 12 seconds.

In finishing second, Lowry broke the BYU school record — set by Courtney Wayment en route to winning the 2022 NCAA championships — by 7 ½ seconds and recorded the sixth-fastest time in the world this year.

She improved her personal record by 10 seconds.

In the day’s other big local news, BYU’s Meghan Hunter, a senior from Provo, finished third in the fastest collegiate 800-meter run ever, and Sami Oblad became the school’s first first-team All-American sprinter.

BYU finished 18th in the team race, with 16 points.

Right from the start in the steeplechase, Lemngole and Lowry broke away and opened a huge gap on the rest of the field. Everyone else was running for third.

Lowry ran within a stride or two of Lemngole for four of the race’s 7 ½ laps and then the Kenyan’s wilting pace began to take its toll. Lemngole pulled away from her challenger and won by 10 seconds.

Lowry finished eight seconds ahead of the third-place finisher. Lowry’s teammate, the fast-rising Taylor Lovell, was placed ninth with a time of 9:39.43 – same as her ninth-place finish in last year’s race, only 10 seconds faster.

Pity Lowry. If not for Lemngole, she would own two national championships. She also finished second to Lemngole in the NCAA indoor championships 5,000-meter run in March (Lemngole and Lowry also finished 2-3, respectively, in the indoor 3,000 24 hours later).

Lowry, a senior from Meridian, Idaho, has to be considered a contender to make the U.S. World Championships team (she easily surpassed the automatic qualifying time on Saturday; now she must place among the top three at the U.S. national championships later this summer).

Undoubtedly, she will receive several contract offers from shoe companies to continue her career as a professional.

Lowry might be the most accomplished female distance runner in BYU history. She is the second-fastest collegian ever in the steeplechase and the fifth-fastest collegian ever at 5,000 meters. This season she set school records in the steeplechase, the indoor and outdoor 5,000-meter run and the indoor 3,000-meter run.

She was eighth in last summer’s U.S. Olympic trials and has improved dramatically since then.

Like Lemngole and Lowry in the steeplechase, Hunter and LSU’s Michaela Rose broke away from the field at the sound of the gun in the 800-meter run and opened a big gap.

Rose set a blistering — if not foolish — pace of 56.09 for the first lap, and Hunter followed in 56.41. It proved to be too much.

Stanford’s Roisin Willis, a former NCAA indoor champion, ran a more measured race and passed Rose and Hunter in the middle of the homestretch to win with a meet-record time of 1:58.13.

North Carolina’s Makayla Rose passed Hunter at the finish line to take second in 1:58.97. Hunter was third in 1:59.03. Rose, the 2023 NCAA champion, faded to fourth.

It is believed to be the fastest 800-meter race in NCAA history, with five runners dipping under two minutes. Hunter ends her collegiate career as the fourth-fastest collegian ever.

Meanwhile, Oblad, the converted heptathlete and high jumper from Stansbury Park, placed seventh in the 400-meter dash with a time of 51.57 to earn first-team All-America honors (awarded to the top eight finishers in each event).

She is the most decorated female sprinter in school history.

BYU, one of the premier distance-running schools in the nation, has competed in collegiate track and field for 43 years and has totaled some 290 event qualifiers for the NCAA championships during that time.

Only seven of them qualified in an individual sprint race — the 100, 200 or 400 — and none of them advanced to the finals until Oblad did it this week. She set an eye-popping school record of 50.49 a month ago.

In other local developments, Southern Utah’s Aja Hughes, a junior from New Mexico, earned first-team All-American honors by finishing eighth in the high jump.

It was a tight competition to say the least. Seven jumpers had a best jump of 5 feet, 10 ½ inches, and 15 jumpers cleared 5-8 ½,  Hughes among them. The placements were based on fewest misses. Nebraska’s Jenna Rogers won the competition.

BYU’s Jenna Hutchins challenged the leaders with one lap to go in the 5,000-meter run, but when the field shifted to a sprint in the final 150 meters, she faded to 11th place with a time of 15:40.87.

BYU’s Gretchen Hoekstre, the school record holder in the discus, placed 22nd in that event with a throw of 165 feet, 7 inches.

Coronado volunteers coming together to make the Coronado Fourth of July a day to enjoy and remember! Sponsorship from groups like the amazing Coronado Woman’s Club makes our big day possible. Pictured (L-R) Bridgette Jorgenson (CFOJ), Debbie Quigley (CWC), Emily Williamson (CWC), Jamie Hartnett (CFOJ), Ana Magdaleno (CWC), Kathy Fink (CWC), Virginia Bayer (CWC), and Debbie Balsley (CFOJ).

VOL. 115, NO. 24 – June 11, 2025

QUINCY — The confidence the Club Four Volleyball Club’s 14 Boost players gained from a successful showing at the 2024 USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship at the 13U level has helped them earn to a return trip to nationals this year.

All but one of the players on this year’s roster was on the team last season that finished third after not earning a bid, but applying for an at-large bid.

“It definitely boosted our confidence because going into it, we were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t get a bid. All these teams got bids,’” said Paisley Patterson, a right side who attends Barry Western. “There were people like, ‘Oh, you’re paying to go?’ Then we came out and got third, and that drove us this year. We want to do even better this year.”

The tournament will be played June 25-28 at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, the same location as last year’s 13U national tournament.

Morgan Mueller, an outside hitter and incoming freshman at Quincy Notre Dame, said last year’s team had plenty of butterflies ahead of their trek to Dallas. 

Mueller expects a different mentality from her and her teammates this time around.

“I feel like we’re not as nervous this year, and we’re more excited,” Mueller said. “Last year was our first year playing together, and this year, we’re better friends and used to the place, so I feel like we’re going to do well this year.”

Sarah Janes, the 14 Boost coach, anticipates the same thing.

“Last year, they went in and were a little bit timid, but I think they’re going to kill it this year,” Janes said. “At least I expect them to.”

This Club Four team earned a bid to the national tournament by finishing seventh in the Donna Mayer Gateway Big Event in St. Louis in April. The club went 5-2 in the three-day tournament.

“We’re definitely playing with a lot of confidence at these tournaments this year,” said Cadence Smith, a middle blocker and incoming sophomore at QND. “We just keep working harder and harder, and it keeps getting higher and higher. Every time we do well in tournaments, it just gets better.”

The 14 Boost team will not be Club Four’s lone representative in Dallas, though. The 16 Boost team also qualified for the national tournament by winning the the Show Me Qualifier on April 14.

“A lot of us were emotional,” said Leah Knudson, the team’s libero and an incoming junior at Quincy High School. “Winning a qualifier was one of our goals at the beginning of the season.”

Knudson’s QHS and 16 Boost teammate, Madison Loos, missed the first day of that qualifier — Quincy’s prom was the same day — but she and her family left in the wee hours of the morning on April 13 to make it to Kansas City in time.

“It was tough, but energy drinks got me through,” Loos said. “I did sleep on the way there.”

Loos got enough rest to help her team reach Monday’s championship game against the KC Voltage.

“We walked up to our court for the championship game and there were these two huge girls,” Loos said. “We never thought, ‘Oh, we don’t have a chance,’ but we just went out there and gave it our all.”

Club Four was not intimidated. It won 26-24, 25-20, punctuating a bid to nationals.

“I was just so proud of everybody, and I started sobbing,” said Kate Gramke, an outside hitter from QND. “I was so excited.”

Like the 14s, the players on the 16 Boost roster have been to nationals, as well, having gone last year. Josie Stanford, who coaches the 16 and 18 Boost teams, said that experience along with scrimmages against some of the 18 Boost players leading up to the tournament have prepared her players for what lies ahead.

“We’re doing everything in this gym to make us ready for Dallas,” Stanford said. “Last year, we prepared, but we weren’t as prepared as we’d like to be.”

That has changed this year.

“We’re trying to prove ourselves and show who we are,” Gramke said. “Not many people know of us, so we have to make a good impression.”

EUGENE, Ore. — Buoyed by top performances in the hammer throw, high jump and 400 meters, the Georgia women’s track and field squad distanced itself from the opposition and cruised to its first outdoor national championship Saturday.

Georgia lapped the field with 73 points ahead of runner-up USC (47) and third-place Texas A&M (43). Fourth-year Bulldogs coach Caryl Smith Gilbert won national titles at USC in 2018 and 2021.

Olympic gold medalist Aaliyah Butler and Dejanea Oakley took the first two spots in the 400 meters with Butler posting a 49.26 and Oakley a 49.65. Butler’s time was the fifth-best all time for a collegian, and Oakley’s was eighth.

The Bulldogs expanded their lead when Elena Kulichenko won the high jump after tying for the title last year. The Odessa, Russia, native won with a jump of 6 feet, 5 inches.

Michelle Smith, a freshman, finished third in the 400-meter hurdles at 55.20 to clinch the team title. Skylynn Townsend took sixth in the triple jump at 44-4¼.

Georgia ended the night by finishing first in the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:23.62 as Butler took the lead in the final leg.

The Bulldogs entered competition Saturday in the lead with 26 points after Stephanie Ratcliffe won the hammer throw Thursday with a nation-leading distance of 234 feet, 2 inches.

Washington and USC shared the lead earlier Saturday night after Washington’s Sophie O’Sullivan won the 1,500 meters and USC’s Samirah Moody won the 100, but Georgia got 18 points from Butler and Oakley and never looked back.

Georgia also got points in the javelin with a second-place finish from freshman Manuela Rotundo and a fourth-place finish from Lianna Davidson. Senior Keslie Murrell-Ross finished sixth in the shot put.

EUGENE, Ore. — FIU track and field’s Michaelle Valentin, competing in discus, earned the fifth All-American honor of her career as the Panthers wrapped up their week at the 2025 NCAA Championships, hosted by Oregon. 

Valentin closed her illustrious FIU career in style with her first-ever First Team honor, placing 8th-nationally in the women’s discus final. She is the first Panther to earn First Team All-America honors since Rhema Otabor finished fourth in the javelin in 2022. 

Valentin’s throw of 59.67 meters was the second-best in her flight and seventh-best in the opening round, qualifying her for the finals. The Haitian-national caps her FIU tenure with three outdoor All-American awards in Discus, adding the First Team accolades in 2025 to Second Team recognition in both 2023 and 2024. She was also an Outdoor Second Team honoree in the Hammer in 2024 and Indoor Second Team member in the weight throw this season. 

Arndis Oskarsdottir also competed for the Panthers at the NCAA Championships, participating in the women’s javelin final on Thursday. The freshman placed 19th with a throw of 49.96 meters, earning honorable mention All-America status. 

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