The BYU Cougars women’s track and field team finished as runner-up at the Big 12 Championships, held at Drachman Stadium in Tucson, Arizona, on May 17. Jane Hedengren led the team by winning the 5000-meter race and setting a facility record.
The result highlights BYU’s strong performance in a competitive field. The Cougars earned a total of 108 points to secure second place, while Texas Tech won the championship with 119.5 points. Arizona, Iowa State, and Baylor completed the top five teams.
Hedengren’s victory in the 5000 meters came with a time of 15:26.94—nearly twenty-five seconds ahead of her closest competitor—and added ten points to BYU’s score. Jenna Hutchins placed third in that event with a time of 15:53.41, while teammates Taylor Lovell, Taylor Rohatinsky, and Carmen Alder also reached the podium by finishing sixth through eighth places.
In other events, five Cougars combined for twenty points in the 1500-meter final. Hedengren took third place with a time of 4:10.24—the seventh-fastest mark in program history—while Alder finished fourth and Carlee Hansen-Thompson fifth. Hutchins and Rohatinsky followed closely behind in sixth and seventh positions.
Kali McEuen set a school record by running the women’s 400-meter hurdles in under fifty-six seconds for the first time ever at BYU; she finished fourth overall with a time of 55.88 seconds.
Other notable performances included Tessa Buswell taking second place in the women’s 800 meters (2:06.23), Kaiah Fisher placing fourth in discus (53.67 meters), McEuen finishing sixth in the women’s 100-meter hurdles (13.17), and Paje Rasmussen earning eighth place for her run of twenty-three point thirty-two seconds in the women’s two hundred meters.
The meet concluded with several personal bests and school records for BYU athletes as they look ahead to future competitions.
