For the second consecutive year — and the third time in five years — BYU won the women’s distance medley relay Friday at the NCAA indoor track and field championships in Virginia Beach, Virginia, putting the Cougars in fourth place on Day 1 of the two-day meet.
Meanwhile, the BYU men were in third place after the first day of competition with 10 points.
The women’s DMR team of Jenna Hutchins, Sami Oblad, Tessa Buswell and Riley Chamberlain clocked a time of 10:45.34 — a meet and facility record — to best runner-up Oregon (10:45.99).
Utah was fifth.
Hutchins covered the opening 1,200-meter leg in 3:21.61, then handed the baton to Oblad, who covered the 400-meter leg in 52.10, the second fastest in the 12-team field.
Buswell, a freshman from California, covered the next leg of 800 meters in 2:06.52 and handed the baton to Chamberlain, who rallied the team from fourth place to first.
She covered the final mile in 4:25.12 and passed Oregon with 300 meters to go.
Earlier in the day, BYU’s Lexy Lowry, a senior from Meridian, Idaho, finished second in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 15:06.17. The race was won by Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, a sophomore from Kenya and the defending NCAA champion in the steeplechase and cross country.
That put BYU in fourth place in the overall team competition with 18 points (Illinois was first, with 21), but the team’s hopes for winning the team championship took a big hit when Meghan Hunter, who has the third fastest time in the nation this season (2:00.21), failed to advance to Saturday’s final.
She placed fourth in her heat of the semifinals Friday and posted only the 10th fastest time overall, 2:02.39. Hunter missed the Big 12 Conference championships with an ankle injury.
The BYU men’s team scored big in the 5,000-meter run, with Casey Clinger fourth in a school-record time of 13:13.46 and Creed Thompson eighth in 13:19.24, the second fastest time in school history.
The Cougars also placed fifth in the men’s DMR with a time of 9:18.31, breaking by 2 1/2 seconds the school record they set earlier this season.
BYU has a good chance to pick up more points on Saturday. Ben Barton stood in second place after the first day of competition in the heptathlon. His score of 3,340 points trailed Mississippi State’s Peyton Blair by 17 points.