BYU Tandem Lexy Halladay-Lowry, Riley Chamberlain Run Top Two NCAA Times In 3,000 Meters; NAU's Maggi Congdon Wins Fast Mile; Colin Sahlman Wins 800

By Keenan Gray of DyeStat

Photos by Ken Martinez

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS | RACE VIDEOS

SEATTLE – Nico Young and Juliette Whittaker weren’t leaving Seattle empty handed.

After finishing second in their respective races on day one of the Husky Classic, the Paris Olympians bounced back into the win column on Saturday at the Dempsey Indoor Facility to close out another fantastic indoor season at the University of Washington that featured four meet more records. 

Whittaker of Stanford led wire-to-wire in the women’s 800 meter to come away with a 1 minute, 59.44 second effort to post the top fastest time in the NCAA this season. 

Whittaker followed pacer Kalia Estes through the first 400 meters around 57 seconds to open up the race, with former Rider standout Teagan Schein-Becker on her heels and Portland’s Laura Pellicoro back in third.

“It felt pretty fast,” Whittaker said. “Especially the first 200, I think we went out in 26-27 (seconds), so it definitely was fast out from the gun, but that’s what you need sometimes. Felt good to get my legs moving.”

Schein-Becker, now with the Brooks Beasts, remained connected with Whittaker at the bell lap and began surging to the outside of her on the backstretch with under 250 meters to go. Whittaker responded on the final turn to eventually get away from Schein-Becker at the end.

Pellicoro, who ran 4:25.60 for the mile at the Washington Indoor Invite on Feb. 1, caught Schein-Becker in the home stretch to run a five second lifetime best effort of 2:00.92 to finish second to Whittaker. Both Whittaker and Pellicoro ran under Hannah Green’s meet record of 2:01.4.

Schein-Becker finished third in an indoor personal best of 2:01.64.

Young ran into another kicker’s race less than 24 hours after dueling with Habtom Samuel in the men’s 3,000 meters, but this time withstood both Jude Thomas of Melbourne Track Club and Kieran Lumb of On in the men’s invitational mile to set a meet record and personal best time of 3:50.89. 

“I would say it’s a really good season opener,” Young said, who hadn’t raced since the 10,000 meter Olympic final in Paris in August of 2024.

“I didn’t expect to go as well as it did based on how my fall has been, so this is fantastic. I would say I’m further along than I thought and I’m excited to maybe run another indoor race.”

Young remained patient up until the last lap where he threw in a big surge on the backstretch to go with Thomas and Lumb. Thomas held the advantage over the next 100 meters before Young sling-shotted around the final turn and into the lead in the final stretch.

Thomas finished second in 3:51.19 for a five-second personal best and Canadian Lumb claimed third in 3:51.89 

Joe Waskom of adidas ran 3:52.48 for fourth, Cal Poly’s Aidan McCarthy ran 3:52.83 for fifth and Henry Wynne of Brooks Beasts ran 3:52.83 for sixth. All top six finishers ran under Chris Solinsky’s 2011 meet record time of 3:54.52.

Josiah Tostenson and Tayvon Kitchen doubled back in the non-invitational mile sections from their record-setting 3,000 meter races on Friday night, with Tostenson running 4:02.72 to place 36th and Kitchen running 4:05.65 for 51st.

BYU’s Lexy Halladay-Lowry and Riley Chamberlain finished first and second, respectively, in a very competitive women’s 3,000 meter invitational race that saw the top five finishers under Emily Infield’s 2020 meet record time of 8:48.73.

Halladay-Lowry produced the second fastest indoor performance in NCAA history for the win in a meet record 8:40.60 and Chamberlain running 8:40.89 for the third fastest collegiate indoor time.

Northern Arizona’s Elise Stearns lowered Alex Carlson’s school record by 12 seconds to run 8:41.07 for third overall.

Sophia Kennedy put together an 8:42.53 effort to set a new Stanford once held by her teammate Amy Bunnage in 8:43.82.

Washington’s Amina Maatoug rounded out the top five, running 8:46.20 to take down Katie Flood’s school record by nine seconds.

NAU’s Maggi Congdon came away with another school record performance a day after anchoring the Lumberjacks to a school record in the distance medley relay, running 4:27.77 to win the women’s invitational mile over Anna Camp-Bennett of adidas in 4:27.83. Both ran under Chloe Foerster’s meet record time of 4:28.14 from last indoor season.

Stanford’s Bunnage set a school record and a U-20 Australian record with her third-place run of 4:29.09, becoming the first Cardinal female athlete to break 4:30 for the mile. Bunnage anchored Stanford’s second-place distance medley relay team.

Congdon’s teammate Carlson also dipped under 4:30 for NAU, running 4:29.14 for the second-fastest time in school history. Carlson ran the 800 leg on NAU’s distance medley relay team.

Chloe Huyler of Pacer Project (Lakeridge OR) was the top prep athlete in the women’s non-invitational mile section, running 4:44.70 to finish 24th overall.

NAU’s Colin Sahlman swung out to lane three, sprinting past Washington’s Justin O’Toole and Kyle Reinheimer, John Rivera of Brooks Beasts and BYU’s Tyler Mathews to take the men’s invitational 800 meters in 1:46.40.

O’Toole ran 1:46.44 for second, while Rivera beat Reinheimer by a margin of 1:46.56 to 1:46.58 to claim third.

Mathews ran another personal time of 1:46.62 to finish fifth, producing the second-fastest time in the country for freshmen. Washington’s Martin Barco, another freshman, was sixth in 1:47.30, the third fastest in the country for his class.