Baylor Track and Field Ready for NCAA Outdoor Championships
EUGENE, Ore. – Baylor track & field is prepped and ready for the 2025 NCAA Outdoor Championships, set to take place from June 11-14 at the historic Hayward Field.
The Bears will conclude the 2025 campaign in their final meet of the season, where they take their 14 total entries to compete for a national title in Oregon. BU has nine entries on the women’s side and five on the men’s.
Entering the week, Baylor women are ranked fourth in the nation by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. This marks the highest ranking the BU women have been ranked ahead of the Championships. The women are the highest ranked Big 12 team, leading ahead of Texas Tech and BYU who are inside the top-10.
ENTRIES
At the NCAA West Regionals held in College Station, the Bears found success, punching their 14 tickets. Five of those entries come from field events, three in relay teams, and the other six in individual running events.
Igor Olaru punched the men’s first ticket to Oregon in the hammer throw. Olaru is the only freshman qualified among the field. He’s joined with the sprinters on the track, including Demario Prince (110mH), De’montray Callis (200m), Nathaniel Ezekiel (400mH) and the 4x400 relay team of Tyler Honeyman, Abbas Ali, Aren Spencer and Ezekiel.
On the women’s side, Alexis Brown will be the top storyline to follow as she looks to repeat her NCAA Indoor title in long jump. Beside Brown will be Janae De Gannes (long jump), Molly Haywood (pole vault), Tenly Kuhn (pole vault), Ruth Kimeli (10,000m), Calisha Taylor (400mH), Tiriah Kelley (200m) and the relay teams of the 4x100 with Kelley, Hannah Lowe, Brown and Francois and the 4x400 of Summer Sergeant, Kelley, Miriah Ayers and Aaryona Kinchen.
THE FIELD
There will be a field of 24 athletes in every event at the championships, featuring the best 12 men and women from both the East and West regions that qualified from the respective First Round meets that took place May 28-31.
STORY LINES TO FOLLOW
Long Jump:
After suffering injuries through almost her entire career, Brown has reaped the fruit of a healthy season this year, becoming one of the best athletes to grace through Baylor. The graduate took the NCAA Indoor title in long jump, becoming the first male or female athlete to win the event for BU, and looks to go for the sweep. At the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, Brown soared to a 7.03 mark, becoming one of three collegians ever to jump past a wind-legal 7.0 mark. She holds the NCAA lead and is No. 2 in the world for the outdoor season.
If Brown takes the title, she’ll be Baylor’s only second female athlete to win a national championship in the outdoor season. The other female athlete is none other than Associate Head Coach and head jump coach Stacey Smith, who took the title in triple jump in 1999.
Alongside Brown is De Gannes, who has a standout freshman season. De Gannes earned Big 12 Outdoor Silver and is only one of four freshmen qualified to Eugene. Her season-best mark of 22-0.75 put her at the No. 2 mark in BU history and No. 6 in the NCAA this season. She is the only freshman this season who has leapt past the 22-feet mark.
400mH:
Ezekiel has cemented himself as a Baylor great already but looks to seal the deal this week. Baylor, nicknamed ‘Quarter-Mile U,’ has a long history of having success in the 400m events. Out of the 17 men’s outdoor titles BU has won, 15 of those are in either the 4x400 relay, 400m, or 400mH. Ezekiel looks to add his name to the list as he’s blistered through the competition this season.
At the Big 12 Outdoor Championship, Nate made history twice with two sub-48 times, 47.90 in the prelims and 47.89 in the finals to break his own Big 12 meet record, the Nigerian national record and the seventh-fastest time ever in NCAA history. He leads the NCAA by 0.55 seconds in the event. In the Indoor season, the senior finished as runner-up to the 400m title, taking second place just 0.02 seconds behind first and is looking to come back stronger in the 400mH.
On the women’s side in the 400mH, Calisha Taylor represents for the Bears. Taylor, who was a standout athlete at New Mexico Junior College prior to coming to Baylor where she was a 2x NJCAA Outdoor National Champion in the 400mH. Taylor will make her DI championship debut with the No. 1 mark in BU history of 55.94 that she used to punch her ticket at regionals.
Pole Vault:
The duo of Molly Haywood and Tenly Kuhn have proved that iron only sharpens iron. Haywood, making her second appearance in Eugene after her All-American freshman season, looks to continue her success at Hayward Field. Haywood enters with a PB mark of 15-0.25, the No. 2 mark in BU program history.
Kuhn makes her debut at Haward this week after a gritty performance at the NCAA West Prelims. With the top-12 qualifying and moving on to nationals, the hunt was on. With 11 girls qualified at the 14-6 height, including Haywood who cleared it on her third attempt, Kuhn went into a jump-off against Kansas' Mason Meinershagen, who Kuhn had just faced off against at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships two weeks prior. Both had a shot at the 14-6 mark, but neither cleared, forcing a lower mark. At 14-4, Kuhn clinched her spot in the top-12 and solidified two spots for the Bears in Oregon.
STREAMING
The meet will be streamed all four days on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+.