FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Ashley Tutt (Channahon, Ill./Minooka) of the Northern Illinois University women's track and field team finished 13th in the 5,000 meters, earned Second Team All-America honors, on Friday night (March 12) at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Randal Tyson Track Center. 

"I'm very proud of Ashley and the way she asserted herself in the race," said NIU distance coach Adrian Myers. "It was one of the weirdest races I have ever seen in a national championship final, how fast it went out and how slow it was in the middle, Ashley went to the front to try to keep it semi-honest but then ended up in a lot of rough positions on the track. It was a weird race and how it unfolded reflected that but Ashley ran like she had been there before and I couldn't be more proud of that."

Auburn's Joyce Kimeli went straight to the front in a tactical race that settled into a methodical pace. Tutt moved her way into the top-five at the one-kilometer mark and continued in the top-five, moving up to fourth, at two kilometers.

The pace quickened near the halfway point as Kimeli went to the front and would go on to take first place with a time of 15:48.98. Tutt, who came in seeded 15th, outperformed her seed by two positions as she finished 13th with a time of 16:19.42. 

Tutt becomes the second indoor track and field All-American in NIU history, joining Jehvania Whyte who earned First Team All-America honors in 2018 with an eighth-place finish in the triple jump. 

Tutt will continue her historic NCAA Championships double on Monday, March 15, at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship in Stillwater, Okla. The women's six-kilometer cross country race is scheduled for 11:50 a.m. CT on Monday and will be televised live on ESPNU. 

"We looked at this weekend as one race at a time," said Myers. "Right now is about recovery and then heading over to Stillwater tomorrow. We will run the course on Sunday and fortunately for Ashley she has had a lot of success on that course, she nearly won the Midwest Regional (in 2019), so she is very confident on that course. 

"Now it is just about getting her legs under her after running a national 5K and just getting it out. We knew track was going to be about precision, timing and tactics, now cross country will likely come down to pure heart and guts, and when that is what it comes down to, I always have faith Ashley will succeed."