Baylee Mires qualifies for women’s 800-meter finals

EUGENE, Ore. – Former Mead High School standout Baylee Mires, now running for the Washington Huskies, placed eighth in the women’s 800-meter semifinals on Thursday and qualified for Saturday’s 4:47 p.m. finals.

Mires, a senior, finished in 2 minutes, 4.35 seconds. Shea Collinsworth of BYU won the heat with a time of 2:03.32.

Idaho Vandals senior Kinsey Gomez placed 10th in the women’s 10,000-meter final, while North Central graduate Katie Knight finished 15th running for the Huskies.

Gomez, a senior, finished in 33:18, while Knight, a junior, clocked in at 33:36.9.

Gonzaga’s Shelby Mills placed 17th in her 3,000 steeplechase semifinal in 10:12.81 and didn’t qualify for Saturday’s finals.

Alexis Weeks and Dominique Scott helped the Arkansas women make a big statement as the Razorbacks chase an NCAA outdoor track and field team title at Hayward Field.

Weeks won the pole vault at 14 feet, 9 inches after also taking the NCAA indoor title. The freshman cleared more heights than any other competitor. Louisiana-Lafayette’s Morgann Leleux, the 2012 runner-up, and Miami’s Alysha Newman tied for second at 14-1 1/4.

Scott, a senior, won the 10,000 meters in 32 minutes, 35.69 seconds. The runner-up in 2015, Scott pulled away from the field with about three laps remaining to win.

Those victories helped Arkansas to 26 first-day points. Texas A&M is second at 16 and Georgia third at 13.

Texas A&M’s Maggie Malone set an NCAA record in the javelin with a fifth-round toss of 204-9, besting the mark of 202-10 by Indiana’s Irina Kharun in 2004.