Michigan
NCAA Outdoor Championships
Borchers Surges Late to Earn NCAA First Team All-America
6/9/2018 9:45:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
Site: Eugene, Ore. (Hayward Field)
Event: NCAA Outdoor Championships (Day 2 of 2)
U-M Team Result: Tie-40th of 68 teams (5 Points)
Next U-M Event: Season complete
• Photo Gallery | Results
EUGENE, Ore. -- Behind the power of a late-race surge, senior Claire Borchers of the University of Michigan women's track and field team scored her first individual All-America honors in her final track race as a Wolverine to close out the NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday (June 9).
Borchers became Michigan's first top-eight finisher in the 3,000-meter steeplechase since 2007 -- national champion Anna Willard -- as she ran the fastest final lap of anyone in the field to move from seventh to fourth in a new career-best 9:48.33.
A strong kick down Hayward Field's final 100-meter homestretch for Borchers -- who did not run track as a high schooler, opting instead for soccer -- was enough to beat Colorado's fifth-place Val Constien to the line by just .07 seconds as part of a blanket finish that saw fourth through eighth place finish within exactly one second of one another.
Michigan earned five points in the team standings as a result, marking the sixth year in a row the Wolverines have scored at the national meet.
While Borchers has become accustomed to running from the front this year in both her Big Ten Championships win and her run at the NCAA East Prelims, she borrowed the "late-race comeback" page from second team All-American teammate Sarah Zieve's playbook and executed it to perfection.
Borchers looked to make a deliberate decision to run from the back of the pack from the gun, closely tailing the lead group from a safe enough distance through the early laps to avoid any mishaps at the barriers that tend to arise in larger packs.
As the pack began to string out on the third full lap of the race, Borchers started to move up the pack. By the end of that lap, with just four more to go in the race, she had stepped up to 10th in the 12-woman field.
She tracked down two more on the next lap, positioning herself within first team All-America position (top-eight) with three circuits remaining around the Hayward Field track and holding steady in that spot for the ensuing lap.
By the time she passed the finish line at the bell heading into the final lap, Borchers had moved up another spot to seventh -- five seconds behind the three leaders but with only just three seconds of buffer space both in front of her and behind her between fourth and 10th.
Fully embracing the Zieve approach and displaying shades of last year's NCAA 1,500-meter champion Jaimie Phelan, Borchers would run a final lap unrivaled by anyone else in the field.
By the time she cleared the final barrier of the race, she had moved up to fifth, still with some ground between herself and Constien of Colorado but with Utah's Grayson Murphy, Kansas' Courtney Coppinger and Utah State's Cierra Simmons right on her heels.
That group would only draw closer to one another as the closing meters passed by, with Borchers finally able to edge out Constien directly at the finish line for fourth.
When the dust had settled it was not national champion Allie Ostrander of Boise State who had run the race's fastest final lap, but Borchers. Her furious finish saw her round Hayward in just 72.09 seconds, edging out Coppinger of Kansas for that honor by a quarter of a second.
Borchers closes her career on the track at Michigan having run five sub-10-minute efforts in her career -- the most in school history. Her performance on Saturday was the third-fastest time in school history behind of a pair of results from Willard in 2007.
Saturday also saw Aaron Howell close out the second day of the heptathlon and her decorated Michigan career. A late addition to the meet after one of the original 24 qualifiers pulled out with injury, Howell would ultimately finish 18th with 5,404 points -- just 100 points shy of second-team All-America honors.
Howell recovered from a slow start in the long jump -- just 5.29m (17-4.25) -- with her best-ever performance in the javelin. Howell launched a mark of 43.28m (142-0) on her third-and-final attempt in the pouring rain for the fifth-best mark of anyone in the field.
She closed out the day with a 2:24.84 effort over 800 meters to close out the two-day, seven-event competition.
Overall, the weekend saw her establish new career bests in both the javelin and the 100-meter hurdles on Friday to close out her Michigan collegiate career. She added an Honorable Mention award to the Second-Team All-America award she claimed as a freshman in 2014.
COLLEGIATE CAREER BESTS AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
Claire Borchers -- 9:48.33 / Steeplechase (Saturday)
Aaron Howell -- 13.86 (+0.9m/s) / 100m Hurdles (Friday)
Aaron Howell -- 43.28m (142-0) / Javelin Throw (Saturday)
FULL MICHIGAN RESULTS BY EVENT
Q = Automatic qualifier to NCAA Championships Final
q = Non-automatic qualifier to NCAA Championships Final
1,500 Meters (Semifinals) [Thursday]
18. Haley Meier / 4:16.60
3,000-Meter Steeplechase (Final)
4. Claire Borchers / 9:48.33
7. Claire Borchers / 9:54.52Q (Thursday semifinals)
16. Sarah Zieve / 10:09.17 (Thursday semifinals)
Heptathlon (Final)
18. Aaron Howell / 5,404 points
100 meter hurdles / 13.86 (+0.9m/s) (998 points)
High Jump / 1.69m (5-6.5) (842 points)
Shot Put / 12.84m (42-1.5) (717 points)
200 meter dash / 26.93 (+0.8m/s) (718 points)
Long Jump / 5.29m (17-4.25) (+0.1m/s) (640 points)
Javelin / 43.28m (142-0) (730 points)
800 meter run / 2:24.84 (759 points)
Players Mentioned
