Sami Oblad makes BYU history at NCAA track and field championships.
Sami Oblad, the senior from Stansbury Park, made a little history by advancing to the finals of the 400-meter dash during Thursday’s NCAA track and field championships in Eugene, Ore.
Oblad, a converted heptathlete and high jumper, finished eighth in the semifinals with a time of 51.20.
No matter what happens in Saturday’s nine-woman final, she will be the highest-placing female sprinter in BYU 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. Counting Oblad, only seven of them qualified in the sprints — the 100, 200, or 400 — and none of them advanced to the finals (the highest finish was 15th).
Georgia’s Aaliyah Butler, who competed for the U.S. in last summer’s Olympics, had the fastest time, 50.16.
The men will take the track tomorrow for the second and final day of their competition. The women’s finals will be Saturday.
There was only one men’s event Thursday and that consisted of the final five events of the decathlon, continuing from where they left off Wednesday. BYU’s Ben Barton, a junior from Michigan, finished sixth with 7,777 points. The top eight placers in each event are designated as first-team All-American.
The event was won by Mississippi State’s Peyton Bair, a junior from Kimberly, Idaho. He scored 8,323 points to beat the runner-up by 435 points.
Barton’s teammate, sophomore Jaden Roskelley, was 19th, with 7,475 points.
Meanwhile, as anticipated, Lexy Lowry and Meghan Hunter easily advanced out of Thursday’s semifinals to Saturday’s finals.
Lowry, the fifth fastest collegiate steeplechaser ever, appeared to run just hard enough to qualify, claiming an automatic qualifying spot by finishing second in her heat, third overall, with a time of 9:36.24. Teammate Taylor Lovell also grabbed an automatic qualifying spot by finishing fourth in her heat. She had the ninth fastest time overall, 9:37.97, a personal record by 6 ½ seconds.
Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, the defending champion and collegiate recordholder, had the fastest time, 9:26.44.
Hunter, the third fastest collegian ever at 800 meters, eased off near the finish to claim second place in her heat, .04 behind winner Makayla Paige of North Carolina. Hunter’s time was1:59.96. LSU’s Michaela Rose, the 2023 NCAA champ, had the fastest time of the day – 1:58.95, an NCAA meet record, just ahead of Duke’s Lauren Tolbert, 1:59.39.BYU’s hopes for the team race suffered a setback when Carlee Hansen and Riley Chamberlain failed to advance out of the semifinals of the 1,500-meter run. They both ran in the first of two heats, and it proved to be a slow one — so slow that all 12 women were bunched in a tight pack with a lap to go. It turned into a 100-meter sprint to the finish and Chamberlain and Hansen placed sixth and seventh, with times of 4:12.28 and 4:12.35 — about four seconds faster than they ran two weeks ago in the prelims. Northern Arizona’s Maggie Condon won the heat with a relatively slow time of 4:11.04.
