For the second time in four seasons, BYU track and field has won the distance medley relay national championship.
Cougars’ Sadie Sargent, Sami Oblad, Carlee Hansen and Riley Chamberlain combined to record a time of 10:51.42 — the school’s third fastest time ever in the event — to claim victory at the NCAA Track and Field Indoor Championships in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 8.
The distance medley relay consists of a 1,200, 400, 800 and a mile or 1,600 meters. Sargent ran the 1,200-meter leg in 3:20.65, Oblad ran the 400-meter leg in 55.50, Hansen ran the 800-meter stretch in 2:07.50, and Chamberlain ran the 1,600-meter leg in 4:27.78 to bring home the title.
Winning the distance medley relay helped the women’s track and field team to place seventh overall at the competition, finishing in the top 10 for the third time in five seasons.
“We put our heads down and worked” Sargent said in a BYU news release. “Coach [Diljeet Taylor] told us to believe in ourselves and in each other. That is exactly what we did today.”
Ed Eyestone, BYU director of track and field, praised their performance.
“Winning the women’s distance medley relay is a huge accomplishment and helps solidify us as the distance powerhouse we are,” he said in a news release.
In addition to a national championship, Sargent, Oblad, Hansen and Chamberlain were named First Team All-Americans.
The BYU foursome of Courtney Wayment, Olivia Hoj-Simister, Lauren Ellsworth-Barnes and Alena Ellsworth last won the national title in the distance medley relay in 2021.
Another Cougar with a top performance at the NCAA Track and Field Indoor Championships was Meghan Hunter. Five years after she was involved in a rollover car accident, the junior took third in the final heat of the women’s 800-meter race, surging from the middle of the pack to cross the line at 2:02.15 — the third fastest indoor time in BYU history and a new personal best.
“I was so excited to have made the final and wanted to keep that energy going into it,” Hunter said in a news release. “I’m feeling so grateful.”
Lexy Lowry was fourth in the 3,000-meter run with a time of 15:20.73 (second fastest in school history) just 24 hours after finishing fifth in the 5,000-meter race.
The men’s team scored only six points (good for a 35th-place tie), all of them coming from BYU’s Lucas Bons, who placed third in the final heat of the men’s mile with a time of 4:02.02. Bons was initially disqualified for stepping off the track during one of the collisions, but BYU filed and won a protest.
BYU came away from the two-day competition with nine First Team All-Americans, nine Second Team All-Americans and one Second Team All-American honorable mention. The Cougars performed admirably in at the event, said Liz Darger, BYU’s senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator.
“We had a fantastic experience at nationals that included All-Americans, podium finishes and of course the national championship in the women’s distance medley relay,” she said. “The competition was fierce and the atmosphere was electric. Through it all our student-athletes represented BYU and the Big 12 remarkably well in how they competed, and how they interacted with others. They gave Cougar Nation a lot of reasons to celebrate this weekend.”
