Yorks Runs No. 3 Mile Time In NCAA Indoor History
February 28, 2016 | Track & Field
MPSF Championships
Dempsey Indoor - Friday-Saturday, Feb. 26-27
Watch Record-Breaking Mile Run
Complete Results | Coach Metcalf And Yorks Interview | Yorks Flotrack Interview
SEATTLE – Izaic Yorks has made a lot of Husky history in two and a half years, in everything from a school record at 800-meters all the way up to All-America honors in 10,000-meter cross country and several more records in between. But today in the Dempsey, he ran a truly historic time, smashing his own Washington school record in the mile in 3:53.89, the third-fastest time ever run in NCAA indoor history, and the fastest ever by an American collegian.
Yorks, a Lakewood, Wash. product out of Lakes High School, broke the Dempsey facility record as well as the MPSF Championship meet record with the jaw-dropping time. It was nearly four full seconds faster than his own previous school record of 3:57.81 set last year, and also qualifies him for the U.S. Olympic Trials at 1,500-meters. It's the third school record of the indoor season for Yorks, as he also broke the 800m record with a 1:47.89, and ran on the Husky DMR which ran 9:27.19 just last week, the eighth-fastest time in NCAA history.
The sensational mile run came early in the final day of the MPSF Championships, which brought the Dempsey home season to a close for the Huskies. No. 1-ranked Oregon won the women's team title with 108 points while the Huskies finished sixth out of 19 teams with 47.75 points. USC got the win on the men's side, with the Huskies placing seventh with 49.5. Washington will now see which of its athletes made the top-16 cut for the NCAA Indoor Championships, set for March 11-12 in Birmingham, Alabama.
The only two faster miles in NCAA history were both run at the Millrose Games, one in 2014 by Lawi Lalang, a former Arizona runner from Kenya who went 3:52.88, and a 3:52.98 time by Tulsa's Chris O'Hare, a British athlete, at the 2013 Millrose Games. Thus, Yorks ran the fastest mile indoors in a college-only field, faster than Lalang's time of 3:54.74 at the 2013 NCAA Indoor meet.
Here's how this epic race ended. 3:53.89 mile right next to a 3:53.95 pic.twitter.com/mLqGlPj3oV
— UW Track (@UWTrack) February 27, 2016
Still, Yorks had to fight to the finish just to get the win today, as Stanford's Sean McGorty finished right alongside Yorks in 3:53.95, which goes down as the fourth-fastest in collegiate history. Three more runners broke the four-minute-mile barrier but were five to six seconds behind Yorks and McGorty, who ran the two fastest times in the NCAA this year by over two seconds.
"Izaic's season has just gone, crazily enough, according to plan," said Head Coach Greg Metcalf. "We wanted to get a DMR qualified, we wanted to get qualified in the 3k, and we wanted to take one shot at running fast in the mile, and we got a little help obviously from a teammate in Blake Nelson who did a phenomenal job of setting the table for Izaic and made his job just a little easier. I thought he could run 3:54 here, I was wrong, he ran a little faster. It turned into a phenomenal race. To have two college milers coming off the corner battling, McGorty's a great young man, and Izaic hangs on down the homestretch, it was just a great race and fantastic to win that race and run that fast in the Dempsey … and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy."
Yorks also thought he could get into the 3:55 or 3:54 range "on a good day," but wasn't thinking about the clock in the heat of the moment.
"It didn't register in my head exactly where I was," he said. "To be honest, at 1,200 meters I didn't even hear the split, so I was just trying to run fast at that point, so to go across the line and see that time was pretty cool."
There were several other great performances by the Huskies today, starting with Chris Williams and Kennadi Bouyer, who both set school records of their own on Friday and followed up with runner-up finishes in the finals of their events today. Williams, who got into NCAA qualifying position with a 7.72 time in the 60m hurdles yesterday, ran 7.77 in the final today, the second-best time of his career, to take second overall. Bouyer equaled her 7.32 school record in the 60-meter dash that she ran on Friday, taking second in the finals today.
The final three events of the men's heptathlon were completed today, with Husky sophomores Josh Gordon and Cole Jensen each scoring for the Dawgs. The two started with identical 8.41 times in the 60-meter hurdles, PRs for both. Jensen then cleared 14-9 in the pole vault while Gordon made 13-9 ¼, another personal best for him. Gordon then finished seventh in the final 1,000-meters in 2:46.38 and Jensen was 13th in 2:52.05.
The final tally of 5,415 points for Gordon was an improvement of 148 points over his previous PR, moving him up to No. 3 on the Husky top-10 list just behind Jensen, who had 5,356 points today, slightly off his career-best from the UW Invitational. Gordon placed fifth overall to pick up four team points, and Jensen finished seventh to score two points.
Seniors Baylee Mires and Eleanor Fulton both scored in the 800-meters, with Mires taking fifth in a time of 2:05.74, and Fulton seventh in 2:07.99. Derrick Daigre was 10th overall on the men's side in 1:51.89. The only other individual scorer on the track today for the Dawgs was senior Maddie Meyers, who led the 3,000-meters late but had a tough closing lap and had to settle for seventh-place in 9:15.37.
The 4x400m relays closed out the meet, with the UW men taking eighth for one point in 3:14.81, with Ryan Croson, Jacopo Spano, Lucas Strong, and Andrew Prentice getting the carry. The women had a collision on one hand off to deal with, but still finished sixth overall in 3:45.55, with the team of Krista Armstead, Baylee Mires, Carolyn Birkenfeld, and Alexis Ford.
In the open 400-meters, Armstead was the top Dawg in 11th-place with a time of 55.79, and on the men's side, Spano had an indoor PR of 47.83 to just miss scoring in ninth-place overall.
More highlights in the field events included sophomore Carson Murray with an indoor PR in the high jump, clearing 6-10 ¾ on his third attempt, a mark that ties him for 10th on the Husky top-10 list. Unfortunately, even though only three competitors went higher, the tiebreak procedure had Murray 10th overall today. In the women's triple jump, Savannah Burr backed up her breakthrough PR from two weeks ago with another mark just shy of 40-feet, as she went 39-9 ¼ to take ninth overall.
