BYU’s Claire Seymour, who had only the 15th fastest time entering Saturday’s 800-meter run at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Birmingham, Alabama, finished a surprising second.
Days before the meet, BYU coach Diljeet Taylor had said that Seymour was one to watch out for despite having the second slowest time in the field. Seymour, a junior from Modesto, California, produced the fastest time in Friday’s prelims and then outran all but one rival in the final.
Virginia Tech’s Lindsey Butler finished in 2:01.37, with Seymour second in 2:01.96. It is the second fastest indoor time in the history of a school that has produced five national champions and two runners-up in the event.
Bolstered by Seymour’s performance, BYU finished eighth in the team standings, which follows a seventh-place showing in last year’s meet. The Cougars also have finished second, first and second, respectively, in the last three NCAA cross-country championships.
Seymour’s performance was one of two surprising developments for BYU on Saturday.
Just 24 hours after winning the 5,000-meter run, senior Courtney Wayment returned Saturday to defend her national championship in the 3,000-meter run. Clearly not recovered completely from the previous night’s race, she lacked her usual strong finish and faded to fifth in the final laps.
Taylor Roe of Oklahoma State won the race with a time of 8:58.95, followed by N.C. State’s Katelyn Tuohy in 8:59.20, Arkansas’s Lauren Gregory 8:59.50, Florida State’s Lauren Ryan in 9:01.37 and Wayment in 9:01.77.
Despite the loss, Wayment finishes her collegiate indoor career with three national championships, the most in school history. She won the 3,000-meter run and anchored the winning distance medley relay in last year’s meet.
BYU finished this week’s meet with one national championship — Wayment’s 5,000-meter victory — and two second-place finishes, Zach McWhorter in the pole vault and Seymour in the 800-meter run.
Several other BYU athletes competed on Saturday. Senior Haley Folsom finished fifth in the pentathlon with 4,201 points after placing 13th in the 60 hurdles (8.69), sixth in the high jump (5-7 3/4), 12th in the shot put (38-2), 15th in the long jump (18-4 1/4), and second in the 800 (2:08.77).
Sophomore Cierra Tidwell placed eighth in the high jump with a mark of 5 feet, 10 inches.