Women's Track and Field | May 25
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Freshman distance runner Ashley Tutt (Channahon, Ill./Minooka) finished the 10,000-meter run, on Thursday, in record time for the Northern Illinois track & field program.
"I couldn't be more proud of Ashley and what she did tonight, and furthermore, this entire year," said NIU distance coach Adrian Myers. "She couldn't have executed or performed that race any better. It was just an anomaly in regards to how fast this race was and the quality of times produced."
The competitive field was so great that the school-record breaking time of 33:58.77 placed 29th out of 48 competitors, overall, as the top-placing true freshman.
"Ashley beat an NCAA All-American, who ran a PR, and still didn't qualify for the NCAA finals. When does that happen, but she ran a PR by about 40-seconds and broke a very solid school record by 23-seconds. What more could you ask for? I can't think of a single thing. Fortunately for us, she's a freshman and this is only the beginning of a special journey that she is on."
Tutt's race was the second in NCAA history, where a competitor with a time of 33:58 did not make the finals, and she outran every competitor in the East division as well as every regional winner since 2013.
Tutt's freshman season has come to an end, but her teammates Remy Amarteifio (Evanston, Ill./Evanston Township) and Jehvania Whyte (Kingston, Jamaica/Vere Technical) will compete in the following days.
-NIU-