NCAA Championships Start Wednesday

The Syracuse track and field programs will be represented by three runners at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships this week, concluding the 2023-24 athletic year.

Savannah Roark, Sam Lawler and Benne Anderson will compete in Eugene, Oregon for individual national titles in a meet that begins on Wednesday.

MEET INFO:
Location: Eugene, Oregon
TV: ESPN2
Live Results: Here

Men's 1,500-Meter Run Semifinals | Benne Anderson | 7:46 PM Eastern Wednesday
True freshman Benne Anderson will be the first member of the Orange on the track this week, taking on the semifinals of the 1,500-meter run. The event is split into two 12-man semifinals, with the top-five finishers in each heat, plus next two fastest times advancing to Friday's final.

Anderson, an All-ACC performer as a rookie, will race in heat one on Wednesday. He holds the eighth-best season best in the 12-man heat, but avoids the top-two times in the field (Northern Arizona's Colin Sahlman and Washington's Nathan Green) in the semifinal round.

Anderson holds a season-best mark of 3:39.55. North Carolina's Ethan Strand (3:35.60) holds the best mark this year in Anderson's heat. The field is all relatively close to seeded, Anderson's PR time is less than a second behind Boston College junior Steven Jackson, who owns the fifth-fastest mark in the heat.

If Anderson can extend his season to the NCAA final, that race will be at 9:12 p.m. eastern time on Friday (6:12 local).

Men's 10,000-Meter Run Final | Sam Lawler | 10:08 PM Eastern Wednesday
Sam Lawler will be the first 'Cuse runner to compete in an NCAA final on the week, racing in the men's 10k.

Twenty-four runners will take to the track on Wednesday in a winner-take-all final. North Carolina's Alex Phillip (27:51.26) has the best mark in the nation this season. Lawler enters the meet seeded 22nd based on season-best marks, but he already out-performed the field in the NCAA East Prelims, grabbing an automatic qualifying spot to Eugene, despite not starting the race seeded in the top-12.

The 10k has been a staple for the 'Cuse track and field programs, with at least one man or woman reaching the sport's final weekend in the event in nine of the last-10 years an NCAA Championship was held.

Women's 10,000-Meter Run Final | Savannah Roark | 11:08 PM Eastern Thursday
The Orange's highest-seeded runner of the week, Savannah Roark will seek her first All-America finish on the track. She already owns one All-America plaque from cross country.

Roark will race in the 24-woman final on Thursday night as the No. 10 overall seed based on season-best marks. She owns a time of 32:50.56 from earlier this season, which is less than a second off her PR.

Florida's Parker Valby, the NCAA Champion in the 5k last season, is the pre-meet favorite. She set a PR of 30:50.43 earlier this season. The rest of the field is significantly more tightly packed to Roark. The No. 2 overall seed – Alabama's Hilda Olemomoi – owns a PR time of 32:05.83, just 42 seconds ahead of Roark's career best, while the No. 3 seed is within 31 seconds and four is within 24 seconds.

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Players Mentioned

Benne Anderson

Sam Lawler

Savannah Roark

Syracuse University Athletics