Aside from finishing in first and second place, you couldn’t write a better script than the finish that Utah track athletes McKaylie Caesar and Morgan Jensen had at the NCAA regionals.
Caesar and Jensen were not in the group that broke away initially in the 10,000-meter race on a hot, humid night in College Station, Texas, but the two Ute runners continued to keep their pace and be patient.
“I think they made a great choice to lay back and let some of the really talented women kind of drive the pace too hard for a few of them,” Utah track and field coach Kyle Kepler said. “And then they just stayed on pace. They kept running about 79-, 80-second laps, which they’re comfortable with even in that heat.”
With about six laps to go, it was time for the duo to make their move. Running side by side for the majority of the race — Caesar tapped Jensen’s back when she caught up to her — and feeding off each other’s energy, the duo kicked it into high gear down the stretch.
“I think it was the last 150 meters of the race, we were just kind of talking to each other a little bit. We’re like, let’s finish together,” Jensen said.
The two roommates and friends crossed the finish line side by side — Caesar in seventh place with a time of 34:15.26 and Jensen in eighth place with a time of 34:15.28 — to qualify for the NCAA championships.
It’s the first time that Utah has sent two women to the NCAA championships in the 10,000-meter race, and Jensen and Caesar are just the fourth and fifth Ute athletes to qualify for the NCAA championships in the race.
“That was the best thing. I mean, going to nationals is one thing, but being able to cross the finish line with your teammate, your training partner, and one of your closest friends is another thing,” Caesar said. “So that was just such a special moment to finish with her side by side and just both make it to nationals was more than you could ever ask for.”
For both Jensen and Caesar, the dual finish to advance to the NCAA championships was made even more special because both women are out of eligibility after the season, so they got to extend their college careers for a few more weeks.
Jensen, a fifth-year senior from Sandy, comes from a long line of Ute alumni — her grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts all went to Utah — and getting to represent Utah on a national stage again is a dream come true.
“It’s been awesome. I come from a long line of Utah alumni … so it was really cool to have the opportunity to compete and run at the U.,” Jensen said.
Caesar, meanwhile, transferred to Utah from CSU Fullerton in 2023, in part to be coached by Kepler and reach that next level in her running career.
“I knew Coach Kep … is the best 10K coach, and that’s my event. And I knew if I came here I could just fully trust in his training and I knew that I would make tremendous improvements,” Caesar said. “... I just knew that coming here would be the perfect fit for what I wanted to do and my goals, but also to enjoy it and to be pushed to my highest.”
Caesar just being here — let alone running at the NCAA championships — is a miracle. When she was born, Caesar was diagnosed with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a rare condition that causes abdominal organs to move into the chest and prevent the growth of the lungs.
On Halloween night, Caesar’s mom, Kristy, received a call from the hospital that Caesar “wasn’t going to make it.”
“They let us come in and say goodbye to her. We just went down to the chapel, John (Caesar’s dad) and I, and we just started praying,” Kristy said in a video posted on Utah Athletics’ YouTube channel.
“A lot of things happened in that instance that changed our forecast for her. We came up and they said, ‘Oh my gosh, it looks like she’s going to be stable enough that we can do this bypass,” Kristy said.
After undergoing successful surgery, Caesar not only survived that early scare, but has thrived in her life and running career.
“It’s crazy to think that was me at one point and here I am, having no effects of it at all and being able to walk, talk, run,” Caesar said in the video.
As she prepares for her final collegiate race, Caesar is trying to enjoy the moment.
“Just to put myself out there and enjoy it since it is going to be my last, officially, my last race ever,” Caesar said. “I’m just excited to do something special and be able to compete at such an elite level, but also just have fun with it and try my best to do something great.”
Caesar and Jensen will run the 10,000-meter race at the NCAA championships on Thursday at 7:56 p.m. MDT at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, on ESPN.
Along with the 10,000-meter duo, Utah made history, sending its 4x100-meter relay team to nationals for the first time ever.
The team of Megan Rose, Emily Martin, Bailey Kealamakia and Chelsea Amoah finished the NCAA regionals race in a school-record time of 43.85 to earn their way to the NCAA championships.
“We’ve worked so hard to get to this point, and so to … rewrite the history books, it’s really exciting to have the first 4x100 ever to make it. I’m super honored to be on that team,” Martin said.
The teammates have come a long way from when they were “struggling to get the baton around the track,” developing chemistry with teammates and improving race by race.
“I think over time we realized how important chemistry is. And I just think that as a team, it’s just come so far and it just shows how close we are just from a friends’ perspective and just being able to get that chemistry down and finally make nationals is such an awesome accomplishment to be part of,” Martin said.
“We’ve worked so hard to get to this point, and so to … rewrite the history books, it’s really exciting to have the first 4x100 ever to make it. I’m super honored to be on that team.”
— Utah track athlete Emily Martin
The 4x100 relay team competes in the semifinals Thursday at 5:05 p.m. MDT on ESPN. If they advance, they will run in the final Saturday at 7:02 p.m. MDT on ESPN2.
“We’re coming in as the underdog, which is kind of an interesting position to be in because we’re not, quote-unquote, expected to make finals, but I think that it gives us more motivation to make it even more,” Martin said.
“And so even though we are the underdog, we’re still going into the same mentality. We’re not changing anything, we’re just doing what we always do and hoping it’ll be enough to make a final. If it is, that’s awesome. And if it isn’t, we’re still super happy with the accomplishments that we have to even be there in the first place.”
