Three Wildcats head to NCAA Outdoor Track Championships

It's NCAA Championship time for three Weber State women's track and field athletes. Summer Allen, Kate Sorensen and Lexie Thompson will all compete at the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships this week at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

The meet will be held Wednesday-Saturday, June 9-12, hosted by the University of Oregon and the renovated Hayward Field. The meet will be televised on ESPN2 (Thursday) and ESPNU (Saturday).

Each event includes 24 athletes. The top eight finishers will earn first-team All-America honors, the second eight finishers will earn second team honors and the next eight will earn honorable mention All-America honors.

The top eight finishers will be declared first-team All-Americans, with the next eight finishers named second-team All-Americans.

Summer Allen is competing at the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the first time and will run in the 3,000 meter steeplechase. The semifinals of the event will be on Thursday, June 10 at 5:02 p.m. Mountain time. The top 12 finishers from the preliminaries will advance to the finals on Saturday at 4:24 p.m. Mountain time.

Allen, a senior from Orem, Utah, enters the NCAA meet ranked sixth in the nation in the steeplechase. She posted a career best time of 9:47.38 to finish fifth at the NCAA West Preliminary meet two weeks ago to qualify for the NCAA's. That time is the third-fastest in Weber State history.

Allen won the steeplechase at the Big Sky Championships in Ogden. She also earned All-America honors by finishing seventh at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in March, the highest finish by a Wildcat in school history.

Kate Sorensen is competing at the NCAA Championships for the second time in her career. The junior from Gunnison, Utah, will run in the women's 400-meter hurdles with the semifinals set for Thursday at 6:30 p.m. and the finals on Saturday at 5:27 p.m.

Sorensen is ranked 16th in the country in the event. She had a seasonal best time of 57.59 in the event at the NCAA West Preliminary round to qualify for the NCAA's. She won the Big Sky title in the 100 meter hurdles and the 400 meter hurdles last month and is also WSU's school record holder in the event.

She is a two-time Big Sky champion in the 400-meter hurdles, having won the event in each of the last two conference championships.

Lexie Thompson will compete for the first time at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She will run in the 10,000 meters at the NCAA's and narrowly missed qualifying for the 5,000 meters. The 10K finals will be Thursday at 7:08 p.m. Mountain time. Thompson is ranked 11th heading into the national meet with a time of 33:41.75. She set the WSU school record in the 10K with a time of 32:49.62 on April 2 at a meet in Oregon.

Thompson, a senior from American Fork, Utah, won the 5,000 and 10,000 meters and set stadium records in both events at the Big Sky Championships in May in Ogden. Earlier this year she set WSU school records in both events.

Three Wildcats head to NCAA Outdoor Track Championships

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Players Mentioned

Summer Allen

Kate Sorensen

Lexie Thompson

Weber State University Athletics