NCAA track and field: Utah Valley's Kemboi, Utah's Venters finish 1-2 in 10,000M final

The best distance runners, once again, come from the state of Utah.

Utah Valley's Everlyn Kemboi blazed to a 10,000-meter national championship, setting a facility record with a winning time of 32 minutes, 39.08 seconds for the Wolverines' first Division I track and field championship in program history Thursday evening at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas.

"For me, I've been praying so hard to be here, just to race with these good girls," said Kemboi, who ran a 4:51 split in the final mile after transferring to UVU in 2021 from Arizona and earning a spot on the travel squad before the last meet of the season. "They are really strong. From last year, I really wanted to win sometime in the NCAAs. I knew this time, when I raced in Stanford, I knew I could win. I trusted my teammates and my coaches; it's awesome."

Shortly behind her was a familiar face, Utah's Emily Venters, who helped set the early pace before finishing in 32:47.70 and holding off Alabama front-runner Mercy Chelangat's 32:49.62 in third.

BYU's Aubrey Frentheway finished 10th in 33:45.29, the first top-10 finisher in a women's 10,000-meter race for BYU since Laura Turner in 2004.

Venters, the senior from Lawrence, Kansas, who started her career at Boise State and Colorado, led the pack with a 33:12 pace, while native Kenyans Kemboi and Chelangat were just behind her one-third of the way through the race.

But Kemboi surged to the front with three laps remaining and made a strong move with 800 meters left, pulling away in the bell lap to clinch the third All-American status in the prestigious career of the Western Athletic Conference's most outstanding performer.

"It's unbelievable, what I've done today," the junior told ESPN after becoming the first national champion from the Western Athletic Conference in 13 years. "I wasn't even expecting this. These were such strong girls; it was stressful. I remember today before warmups, coach said, 'relax.' I was so nervous; I didn't know what I was going to do. But he said, 'you're going to be fine,' and I just went to warm up and do my thing.

"Coach told me to just go do my thing," Kemboi added. "Do whatever you normally do, Everlyn. It's your time."

Kemboi, whose individual title puts UVU tied for seventh in the team standings with 10 points, will go for a fourth All-American honor Saturday in the 5,000-meter final, where she is listed among the favorites for the race that starts at 8:55 p.m. MDT on ESPN2.

Nebraska jumped out to an early lead for the women's team title with 25 points, 11 more than Texas A&M. Oregon, Alabama and Virginia Tech round out the top five.

Venters' runner-up finish is the highest finish by an Utah track and field athletes at the NCAA championships in program history. The senior graduate student is just the third Ute track athlete to earn first-team All-American honors.

"Emily ran with amazing poise in 82-degree heat and 71% humidity," Utah coach Kyle Kepler said in a university release. "The only American in the top-five and our highest NCAA finisher ever. I couldn't be prouder of the race she ran."

Utah's Simone Plourde crossed the 1,500-meter finish line in 4:11.91 for eighth, just missing Saturday's finals by .42 seconds. Dined Denis added a 57.73 for 18th in the 400-meter hurdle semifinals.

BYU's Ashton Riner-Lunt fell short of defending her national championship in the javelin, earning second-team All-America honors with a final toss of 191 feet, 1 inch. She concludes her career as the second women's javelin thrower in BYU history to record three career outdoor All-American honors, and the first since Hui-Chen Lee in 1987, 1989 and 1991.

Riner-Lunt was one of two second-team All-Americans on the night for No. 19 BYU women's track and field, which also advanced three athletes to Saturday's final.

One year after BYU's Courtney Wayment won the national title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Lexy Halladay-Lowry will try to make it two in a row for the Cougars. The sophomore from Boise, Idaho, ran a collegiate-meet best 9:42.35 for third in Thursday's semifinals to advance to the final Saturday at 7:24 p.m. MDT.

"Lexy perfectly executed her race plan," BYU coach Diljeet Taylor said. "She smoothly advanced to the final and I'm excited to see what she can do on Saturday."

BYU's Adaobi Tabugbo, Jaslyn Gardner, Dolita Shaw and Marianne Barber finished 20th overall in 44.60 in the Cougars' first-ever 4x100-meter relay to race in the outdoor championships.

Barber, Shaw, Brilee Pontius and Sami Oblad added a 22nd-place finish in the 4x400-meter relay in 3:39.56.

Claire Seymour and Meghan Hunter each advanced to the 800-meter final, after Seymour took fourth in the semifinal in 2:01.24 and Hunter checked in with a personal-best team of 2:01.53 for fifth.

Hunter, a junior from Provo whose career nearly ended before it began after a severe car accident that led to the fusion of her C-3, C-4 and C-5 vertebrae, holds the fifth-best outdoor 800-meter time in BYU history, as the first-time finalist joins two-time finals qualifier Seymour for a race that begins Saturday at 8:14 p.m. MDT.

"They each had great race plans and executed them well to reach the finals," Taylor said. "It was a big day for BYU middle distance."

BYU sophomore Ben Barton earned first-team All-American honors for No. 14 BYU men's track and field with an eighth-place finish in the decathlon with 7,815 points.

Barton clocked a 14.22 110-meter hurdle for fifth overall before adding new personal records in the discus (122-1), pole vault (14-5.5) and javelin (173-0).

The finish inched BYU to eighth place ahead of the men's final Friday evening, which will feature Dallin Shurts in the discuss, Kenneth Rooks in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Casey Clinger in the 5,000-meter run.

Arkansas leads the team race with 24 points, followed by Stanford (18), Arizona (16), LSU (15) and Georgia and Harvard (13).

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