NCAA Champs: Korir wins 10,000 for Gaels

Iona’s Leonard Korir outkicked the defending champion, Samuel Chelanga of Liberty, to win the NCAA 10,000-meter run Friday afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa. 

Korir, a junior from Iten, Kenya, showed his surprise indoor win in the 5k was not a fluke, outrunning Chelanga over the final 200 to win in 28:07.63. Chelanga, the collegiate recordholder for the distance, was 5 seconds back.

It was Day 3 of the championships, held on the Drake University campus, again made difficult by weather delays. The day began with the conclusion of the men’s decathlon and long jump, held over from Thursday night because of thunderstorms, and then the Friday evening program was held up again and the stadium cleared when lightning was reported within a 10-mile radius. 

The men’s 10k had been one of the postponed events, so it was contested early Friday evening instead of Thursday night, when it had been scheduled. 

In one of the fastest mass college men’s 800s ever run, Robby Andrews, the Virginia wunderkind from Manalapan, N.J., came from last place over the final 200 to barely catch Charles Jock of Cal-Irvine at the tape, 1:44.71 to 1:44.75, lifetime bests for both runners. In 2010, Andrews’s freshman season, he finished 2^nd in this meet, behind Andrew Wheating of Oregon. On Friday, the last-place finisher ran 1:47.62.

Charlene Lipsey, the LSU sophomore from Hempstead, Long Island, ran a PR 2:03.73 for 4^th place in the women’s 8, just behind Chanelle Price of Tennessee. Price had led much of the way. The race was won by Anne Kesselring of Oregon. 

LSU had been in contention for the women’s team title but was hurt when its intermediate hurdler, Cassandra Tate, finished 5^th but was later disqualified for running out of her lane. USC’s Dalilah Muhammad, from Cardozo, Queens, finished 6^th. 

Oregon, thanks to wins by Kesselring and by Melissa Gergel in the vault, was expected to battle Texas A&M on Saturday’s final day in the women’s team competition. The men’s title appeared to be between Florida and Florida State. Texas A&M won both championships a year ago.

Florida State was led by Ngoni Makusha, of Zimbabwe, who won the long jump at 27-6 ¾ and the 100 in 9.89, both some of the best performances ever recorded by a collegian. He became just the fourth athlete to win the NCAA 100/LJ double, joining Jesse Owens of Ohio State, Carl Lewis of Houston and DeHart Hubbard of Michigan. (Hubbard, the 1924 Olympic champion in the long jump, set the world indoor record in the LJ at the Armory in 1926.)

In the women’s 5,000 -- another rematch of Sheila Reid of Villanova and Jordan Hasay of Oregon – Reid swept by over the final 250 to win, turning back a determined run from 

 Emily Infeld of Georgetown. Hasay was caught at the tape by freshman Abbey D’Agostino of Dartmouth for 3^rd. 

On Saturday, Hasay and Reid will be back in the 1,500 in an event crucial to Oregon’s hopes for its first outdoor team title in 25 years. 

The men’s decathlon, contested over three days because of the weather delays, went down to the final event. The Duke freshman Curtis Beach ran one of the fastest decathlon 1,500s ever run, 3:59.13, but still fell a few points short of the overall victory. Michael Morrison of California held on, 8,118 points to 8,084 for Beach, lifetime-best scores for both. 

In the men’s steeplechase, Princeton’s Donn Cabral ran a PR, 8:32.14, and finished 2^nd for the 2^nd year in a row. The winner was Matt Hughes of Louisville. 

The Texas A&M senior Jessica Beard took the first outdoor NCAA title of her storied career, winning the 400 in 51.10, while the women’s 100 was won by Candyce McGrone of Oklahoma in an upset in 11.08. One of the prerace favorites, the Oregon freshman English Gardner, of Voorhees, N.J., started well but faded to 7^th.

Just a year ago, Gardner was running sprints at the Armory for Eastern Senior; the Blue Devils’ Beach ran on winning relay teams for Duke at this winter’s New Balance Collegiate meet, the same meet at which Beard won the 400 for A&M; Reid anchored ‘Nova to a 10:56 DMR at the Armory in March, and Cabral led Princeton to the Ivy League championship in Washington Heights in February.