Baylor T&F Women Lead in Second Place After Day One of Big 12 Indoor Championships

Fri Feb 28 23:08:21 CST 2025

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – Feb. 28, 2025

Baylor T&F Women Lead in Second Place After Day One of Big 12 Indoor Championships
Women earn five medals and two titles after Friday’s competition
For more information contact: Josie Hutton; 254-709-7720, josie_hutton at baylor.edu<mailto:josie_hutton at baylor.edu>

LUBBOCK, Texas – After the first day of competition of the Big 12 Indoor Championships, the Baylor track & field women lead the competition in second place with 30 points through six of 19 events.

The women’s long jump racked 16 points with a first and third place finish in Alexis Brown and Janae De Gannes. The women’s pole vault also earned two medals for 13 points with Molly Haywood taking the title and Tenly Kuhn finishing sixth. In the pentathlon, Logan Todorovich grabbed a podium finish of eighth place to contribute a point.

Overall, 11 Bears moved on to the finals in their respective events that will take place on Saturday in the final day of competition. Among those 11, two new program records were set with Haywood in the pole vault at 15-1.5 and Tiriah Kelley in the 200m with a 22.70 mark.

THE RUNDOWN

Beginning the day with the multi events, Todorovich took part in the pentathlon. Her best performances came from a fifth place finish in the 60 meter hurdles at 8.58 and a third place finish in the long jump at 19-0.75. Her efforts fought her way to an All-Big 12 title in eighth place with 3,906 points, moving her to third in all-time best pentathlon performers. Todorovich was the only freshman among the field to earn a podium finish.

Beginning the running events, Demario Prince clocked a 7.58 time in the 60 meter hurdles, just 0.01 seconds shy of his program-record best to advance to the finals in third place.

In the 60 meters, two Bears advances to the finals with veteran Brown and freshman Royaltee Brown. Alexis Brown was just 0.02 seconds shy of tying her program-record best to finish in first place, while Royaltee Brown qualified with a personal-best time of 7.24.

In the 600 yards, Sima Lucero ran for a new PR of 1:20.35 to finish in seventh and move onto the finals.

The men’s 400m qualified two Bears with Nathaniel Ezekiel continuing his dominance in the event with a first place finish at 45.29. Demar Francis earned a fifth place finish with a PR of 46.14.

Calisha Taylor survived and advanced to the finals of the women’s 400m with a personal-best time of 53.23.

In the women’s 200m, Kelley broke a new program record to finish third overall with a boasting time of 22.70 in a stacked field. Royaltee Brown also advanced with her second person-best time of the day at 23.02.

In the men’s 200m, Francis finished in first at 20.47 to move on, while freshman Austen Diggs broke out a new person-best of 20.80 to advance in his first Big 12 Indoor Championship.

In the field events, Haywood took home the gold with her 15-1.5 program-record and Big 12 Indoor meet record mark in the women’s pole vault. Haywood and Kansas’ Mason Meinershagen both advanced to the 15-foot mark but could not overcome it in three tries. Going into a pole vault tiebreaker, Haywood cleared the mark to clinch her Big 12 title. Tenly Kuhn double-PR’d, finishing sixth overall with a 14-7.5 mark to claim All-Big 12 status.

In the women’s long jump, Brown’s reign continues as she has yet to not finish in first place the entirety of the indoor season. Brown jumped to a 22-0.25 mark on her first attempt, her third time reaching the 22-mark. De Gannes, making her first conference meet in her career, earned a bronze medal with a 20-8.5 mark.

MIKE ON THE MIC

“Good first day at Big 12s,” said head coach Michael Ford. “Starting off on the ladies’ side, to set it off with Logan to get a point in the multis, that was big. As a freshman, she did very well. Coach Hood did a great job with her. Then going to that 1-3 finish in long jump with Coach Smith, Janae did good. We were hoping to get that 1-2, but overall to get 16 points out of that, that was big for our ladies’ team to keep fighting for this team title. Going to the pole vault, Molly and Tenly did great with a 1-6 finish to get us another 13 points there. I was very proud of our field event crew today.

I thought we did what we had to do on the sprints side. Royaltee making two finals in the 60m and 200m as a freshman, Tiriah running to another school-record in the 200, Alexis running well in the 60 and Calisha making the finals in the quarter mile – her first Big 12 final – and Sima in the 600. I thought, overall, we did really well. I thought we got the people that needed to get to the final.

On the men’s side, we had Nate and Demar do very good in the quarter. Demar ran a PR for him. He made the finals last year, so good for him to get back again. Very proud of Austen Diggs to make his first final in the 200. I believe he ran a season-best and a PR in the 60 as well. Demar doing his double was great to make the finals in the 200 and 400. Demario, of course, did well. We’re going to try to squeeze as many points as we can tomorrow on the guy’s side and see where we can finish up at. Hopefully we can get some more qualifiers for nationals. That’d be a big thing on the men’s side. Overall, very pleased with the group and we’ll get after it again tomorrow.”

WHAT’S NEXT

Baylor concludes competition at the Big 12 Indoors tomorrow with the heptathlon continuing at 10 a.m. CT.

- BaylorBears<http://www.baylorbears/>.com -

Josie Hutton | Associate Director of Athletics Communications (FB, T&F/XC, MTEN)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: (254) 709-7720

[signature_2230589939]<http://www.baylorbears.com/>

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