PUEBLO, Colo. Western Colorado made their presence felt on day one of the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships – walking away with one All-American and seven runners moving on to the finals.
ALL-AMERICAN
- Katie Doucette ran her race in the women's 10,000m leading to her earning the eighth All-American honor of her collegiate career, crossing the finish line in fourth place with a time of 35:27.00. Heading into this race Doucette was ranked 8th out of the 22 runners competing in the event and held her own for the entirety of the race.
- Doucette hoovered around the fifth to seventh spot for the majority of the race early on - briefly dropping to ninth at the 7,200m mark. On the next lap (7,600m), Doucette moved back up to seventh and then would drop to eighth for two laps. But, Doucette wasn't worried about that and remained focused as she started to make her move.
- Doucette would move up to sixth-place and held that spot for the next three laps. Then when that final lap bell rung, Doucette kicked it into gear and made one final push - recording the fastest last lap of 1:12.74 - to finish in fourth-place.
- Additionally, Doucette finished 2/10ths of a second in front of fifth-place finisher Zoe Baker from Colorado School of Mines who finished with a time of 35:27.20.
MOVING ON TO THE FINALS
- Leah Taylor's sixth-place finish in heat one of the women's 1,500m held up after heat two crossed the finish line, as her time of 4:31.81 was the sixth fastest time out of the 12 athletes that qualified for the finals.
- Simon Kelati secured an automatic bid to the finals in the men's 1,500m, after crossing the finish line in fourth place (3:50.573) in heat one. Tyler Nord finished on the heels of Kelati with a time of 3:50.57 - which after heat two concluded, resulted in Nord also qualifying for the finals having the fifth fastest time.
- Allison Beasley earned a spot in the finals in the women's 3,000m steeplechase, by crossing the finish line in third place in heat one with a time of 10:30.09.
- Albert Hesse earned a spot in the finals of the men's 3,000m steeplechase by finishing in first place in heat two with a time of 9:16.68. Michael Grabowski also qualified for the finals after finishing in sixth place in heat one with a time of 9:15.82.
- Kaiya Firor finished in third place (1:00.11) in heat one and finished in eighth-place overall after the second and third heats were completed, thereby advancing to the finals.
FRIDAY SCHEDULE
5:05 p.m. men's triple jump – Ismael Dembele
7:15 p.m. women's 3k steeple final – Beasley
7:30 p.m. men's 3k steeple final – Grabowski, Hesse
UP NEXT
The Mountaineers will be back in action at 5:05 p.m., tomorrow (May 26) as Ismael Dembele will look to earn All-American honors in the men's triple jump.
