Razorbacks Finish Their Mission and Win 2024 NCAA Titles
Eugene, June 8, 2024, No. 1 On the last day of the NCAA Championships at Hayward Field on Saturday, Arkansas accomplished its goal magnificently, taking the team title with 63 points against 59 for Florida.
In his first season leading the program, Chris Johnson of the Razorback women’s basketball team won a sweeping of NCAA Championships in the indoor and outdoor seasons of 2024. In March, Arkansas defeated Florida for the NCAA Indoor title, winning 55–50.
For the Arkansas track and field programs, it is the 51st national championship overall and the ninth NCAA Championship for the women’s squad.
The Sydney Thorvaldson team finished in seventh place on Thursday, earning two points going into the final day, while the Razorbacks scored 61 points overall. Among the 12 entrants on Saturday, Arkansas scored in seven of the events to contribute to the point total.
With 41 points, Texas was third among the team scorers, ahead of Ole Miss (38), LSU (31) and host Oregon (40.5).
Along the way, the Razorbacks made history by scoring the most points by either a men’s or women’s team in the 400 meters with 29 points, capping the first-ever 1-2-3-4 sweep in any NCAA event.
Arkansas women’s 400-meter team finished 1-2-3, surpassing the 24 points Texas women gained in 1996. In the 1981 NCAA meet, the men from UTEP scored 28 points in the 10,000 meters, while the women from Florida State finished with a 1-2-3-6 score in the 200 meters in 1984.
Nickisha Pryce broke Lorraine Fenton’s 2000 Jamaican national record of 49.30 seconds to win the 400 meters with a collegiate record and world record pace of 48.89. With a 49.32 from winning the SEC championship, Pryce, who placed third in the 2023 NCAA final, led the collegiate field going into the meet.
At 49.13, Kaylyn Brown’s second-place result tied the previous collegiate record set by Razorback Britton Wilson from the previous year, making her the fastest 19-year-old in history.
As the silver medallist at the Tokyo World Championships in 1991, Grit Breuer of Germany set the previous world record with a 19-year-old time of 49.42, which Brown surpassed.
Six freshman have won the 400-meter title in the history of the NCAA Outdoor Championships, but none have ever run a time lower than the 49.13 set by runner-up Brown. Athing Mu of Texas A&M set the collegiate and American U20 records in 2021 with her 49.57 freshman best time in the NCAA final.
in was Brown’s sixth performance in outdoor season in under 50 seconds. A 51.17 in the NCAA West first round was the lone anomaly. Throughout the six 49-second races, her average time is 49.70.
Rosey Effiong joined her colleagues in fourth place with a sub-50 second time, clocking 49.72, which ranks No. 8 performer on the college all-time list. Amber Anning finished in third place with a time of 49.59, barely off her lifetime best of 49.51.
In a 4 x 400m relay, the four sub-50 second times to win the 400m final sum up to 3:17.33.
In the 4 x 400m relay, the Razorback team performed exceptionally well as a finale. They needed to take first or second to win the team title, and third place would tie them with Florida for the overall team title.
After Parker Valby won the 5,000m, the second-to-last event of the meet, the Gators took a 59-point lead over Arkansas in the team standings and fielded no teams in the 4 x 400m relay.
The crowd was in astonishment as the relay squad won the team title with an incredible time of 3:17.96. It beat Arkansas’s college record of 3:21.92 from the most recent NCAA West competition. Tennesse finished third in 3:23.68, behind the Razorbacks in third place with a time of 3:23.32.
Anning (50.52), Effiong (49.21), Pryce (49.19), and Brown (49.04) made up the splits for the Hog foursome, who dominated the race from the off and gradually extended their lead to a 5.36-second advantage.
