Gators Win Fifth Men's Outdoor Title In The Past 10 NCAA Championship Meets

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

KIM SPIR PHOTOS | 

EUGENE – It's all about how you finish. 

Florida's Joe Fahnbulleh has been hearing for years about starts that leave him trailing early in a race and the chase-down speed that comes late. 

On Friday at Hayward Field, it was Fahnbulleh's show as his top-end burst took him to wins in the 100 meters (10.00) and 200 meters (19.83) on a cool, damp night where he was the only sprinter to get personal bests in either final. 

Fahnbulleh anchored the Gators 4x100 relay to second place, Champion Allison and Ryan Willie both added points in the 400 meters and the Florida 4x400 relay ran a meet-record 2:58.88 to cap head coach Mike Holloway's fifth win in the last 10 outdoor championships. 

"I told the guys if you trust me, do what I ask you to do, we're going to win a national title," Holloway said. "They trusted me and we're national champions."

Florida had finished 20th at the NCAA Indoor final and scored only 11 points. 

But with Fahnbulleh leading the way, the Gators built upon a long list of great jumpers and on the heels of Grant Holloway. 

"Joe's a social media guy," Holloway said of Fahnbulleh. "He heard so much about how bad of a starter he is that he started believing he's a bad starter. 

"The one thing Joe needed to understand is that you don't have to be ahead at 30 (meters), you just have to be close. Because nobody in the world closes like that guy. Nobody."

Fahnbulleh helped set the table for a big night when he took the baton in the 4x100 relay final in fifth place and nearly made up 10 meters on USC at the finish tape. The Trojans held on to win 38.49 to 38.52 

In the 100, all eyes at Hayward Field were on Oregon's Micah Williams, the NCAA leader and top performer in the prelims. But he was unable to break the race open and ended up fading to seventh. 

The hard-charging Fahnbulleh nearly broke 10 seconds for the first time in his career. 

In the 200 meters, an event where he was an Olympic finalist for Liberia last summer, Fahnbulleh repeated his 2021 title. 

"We've got some work to do on the start, don't get me wrong, but it's way better than it was," Holloway said. "It's a trust factor."

North Carolina A&T's Randolph Ross and LSU's Sean Burrell repeated as champions in their respective best events. 

Ross won the men's 400 meters in 44.13 seconds. 

Burrell won the 400 hurdles by pulling away from the field over the final 100 meters after a choppy start. He finished in 48.70. 

Trey Cunningham of Florida State, who competed in his first NCAA outdoor final since 2018, ran a personal-best and No. 3 all-time 13.00 to win the 110-meter hurdles. 

In the 1,500 meters, Washington trio Joe Waskom, Luke Houser and Nathan Green remained connected and fed off one another on the final lap of the race. 

Waskom, the Pac-12 champion, closed in 53.26 seconds and managed to hold off Ole Miss' indoor mile champion, Mario Garcia Romo.  His winning time was 3:45.58. Houser and Green were fifth and seventh, respectively, helping Washington become the first program since 2010 to have three All-America first-team athletes in the event.

In the 800 meters, Texas Tech's Moad Zahafi, the world-leader in the event, ran 1:44.49 to win the final and secure the first title since 2004 for the Red Raiders. Second-place finisher Navasky Anderson from Mississippi State broke the Jamaican record on the way to second place with 1:45.02. 

In the fastest 3,000-meter steeplechase in NCAA meet history, Ahmed Jaziri of Eastern Kentucky was able to get past Montana State's Duncan Hamilton after the final barrier and won the race in 8:18.70. 

Hamilton (8:18.878) and Georgetown's Parker Stokes (8:18.880) were second and third as the top eight achieved personal bests and ran 8:25 or better. 

Wisconsin's Olin Hacker, a rare seventh-year senior, made the most of his final appearance in a Badgers uniform. A year after falling 600 meters into the 5,000 meters final and never fully catching up, and taking 19th, Hacker made all the right moves and won the race in 13:27.73. 

Hacker closed in 54.62 and to outkick the field over the final lap and held off Michigan State's Morgan Beadlescomb and Northern Arizona's Nico Young.