Anissa Lammie Helps Girls Team Win Sprint Medley Relay And Also Anchors Mixed Gender 4x400 To Meet Record

By Oliver Hinson of DyeStat

Becky Holbrook photos

INTERVIEWS | RESULTS | WEBCAST

EUGENE — Southeastern Track Club had its day on Friday at Nike Outdoor Nationals, winning the girls sprint medley relay and then shattering the meet record in the mixed 4x400 relay.

The club, with runners from Hamilton Southeastern High in Fishers, Ind., ran 3:58.51 in the SMR, a new US#7, and 3:27.65 in the 4x400.

“I was really happy,” 4x400 anchor Anissa Lammie said. “We put in a lot of work for this meet, so I’m really excited for us.”

Asked what it meant to win a national championship, Lammie kept it simple: “Everything.”

Lammie was undoubtedly the MVP for both of her squads. In the SMR, she took the baton for the 400 leg (the race goes 200-200-400-800) in the middle of the pack, but she opened up a massive lead on the home stretch, handing it off to anchor Ciara Kepner with a lead of more than two seconds.

Kepner closed in 2:11.6.

In the 4x400, Lammie took the baton in second place, overcame a deficit of about 10 meters and split a 53.83, breaking the tape nearly three seconds before anyone else.

The 4x400 was the more challenging event for Southeastern. While Lammie and her teammates in the SMR have done a lot of training together throughout the season, that isn’t the case for the mixed 4x400. Due to its uniqueness as an event, there often isn’t much training devoted to it, so cohesion can be difficult to build, especially when it comes to handing off the baton.

“We definitely had tricky handoffs,” first leg Christian Ortiz said. “First to second (leg), I kind of had to dive for it. I almost fell.”

Ortiz said his handoff to teammate Chloe Senefeld never felt good in practice. Even with his partial dive, though, he said the handoff in the race was executed better.

Lillie Bogdan Dominates 2k Steeplechase

Lillie Bogdan (Frontier Central NY) controlled the girls 2,000-meter steeplechase, running a personal best of 6:29.81 to become the ninth high school girl to break 6:30 in the event.

Bogdan took a commanding lead from the gun, building a five second gap in the first lap alone. From there, she steadily extended her lead over the next four laps, eventually winning by 12 seconds.

Her early pace, she admitted, may have been a tad quick — she was slower on each of the next three laps — but she wasn’t too surprised by how she got out given how she was feeling before the race.

“I was just anxious, excited… all these emotions at once,” Bogdan said, “just really wanting to get that time under 6:30.”

Being able to break that barrier — in her last high school race, no less — carried a lot of meaning for Bogdan. She didn’t get to compete in the indoor season at all due to illness, but over the course of the outdoor season, she gradually built herself back up, dropping her times consistently through April and May. To be able to compete at all in the outdoor season was a blessing. To be able to end her career with a national championship was even better.

The 2,000-meter steeplechase has special meaning for New Yorkers, who contest the event at their state meet. Recent champions include Angelina Napoleon and Karrie Baloga.

“I’m just so grateful that everything kind of played out the right way,” Bogdan said.

In the boys’ race, Aiden Wendring (Central OR) fought through a rainstorm in the first few laps to win in a personal best time of 5:56.54, a new US#1. 

Wendring said he could barely see the barriers in the first lap due to the rain and his positioning in the pack. He had to trust that he wouldn’t fall over any of them, which was more than a little frightening.

Wending managed to run two and a half seconds faster than he did at the Oregon Relays.

“It definitely takes some getting used to,” Wendring said. “Obviously, I practice hurdles alone at practice. Having to adapt to that in the middle of the race… it’s not easy to do.”

Cate Bryant Wins Heptathlon

In March, Cate Bryant (Houston Memorial TX) won the pentathlon at Nike Indoor Nationals with 3,766 points. On Friday, she took home her second Nike gold medal of 2025, winning the heptathlon with 5,027 points.

Bryant took first place in three of the seven events — the high jump, long jump and 200 meters — and set personal bests in the 200 and 800 meters. Going into the 800, the last event of the heptathlon, she had a lead of only 100 points, so she knew she wasn’t going to be able to coast for an overall win.

“I knew I had a lead, but not a big one,” Bryant said, “so I really thought, ‘I’m either gonna need to PR or beat (runner-up Ava Welsch).’”

Welsch got her at the line, finishing third in the 800, but Bryant’s fourth place finish and time of 2:19.98 secured her the win.

The boys decathlon was a much different story. Miles Lipka (Algonquin NH) won by over 200 points, scoring 7,218. He said he was pleased to have a big cushion heading into the 1,500 meters, an event he describes as “brutal.”

“I wanted to be able to ease up a little bit,” Lipka said. “I was able to do that a bit and come through without going through too much pain.”

Shadow Creek Shows Texas Speed In Girls 4x200

Shadow Creek TX was the only Texas team in the girls 4x200 meter relay championship, and they represented the Lone Star State well, winning by a huge margin in 1:35.89. Runner-up Plainfield TC IL came through exactly four seconds later in 1:39.89.

The gap between Shadow Creek and Plainfield was bigger than the gap between Plainfield and Soldotna TC AK, the 13th place finishers.

The boys 4x200 relay was much closer, but Hastings TC MN still earned a decisive victory, breaking the tape nearly a second ahead of runner-up Arrowhead TC WI with a time of 1:26.22.

The 4xMile relay capped off the day.

Sehome TC WA won the girls 4xMile in 20:32.17, leading from gun to tape. By the first handoff, they were up by three seconds, and they increased that lead tenfold by the end of the race, winning by over 30 seconds. All four girls ran splits between 5:06 and 5:09.

Adrenaline TC DE won the boys 4xMile in 17:20.76, enjoying a relatively modest six-second margin of victory. Anchor Benjamin Pizarro took the baton in second and split a 4:17 on the anchor leg, pulling away at the end.

Sheridan TC WY won the boys sprint medley relay in 3:32.41.

Joshua Rothery (I-270 TC MD) and Julie Scheffler (Scarsdale TC NY) won the boys and girls 10,000-meter racewalks, respectively. Rothery crossed the line in 57:03.79, while Scheffler was even faster, clocking a 54:26.11.