Cal Sports Report

NCAA Track and Field: Camryn Rogers Writes a Perfect Ending - Another NCAA Title & Record

The senior won the hammer throw with a collegiate mark in her final meet for Cal.

Jeff Faraudo

Final update

Cal senior Camryn Rogers capped a peerless career by winning her third straight hammer throw title and breaking the collegiate record for the fifth time in two years on Thursday at the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Oregon’s Hayward Field.

Rogers threw 254 feet, 10 inches (77.67 meters) to easily eclipse her standard of 250-10 (76.46) from the NCAA West prelims meet two weeks ago.

Camryn Rogers digests setting the college record.
Camryn Rogers takes a moment to digest her record-setting throw / Photo by Al Sermeno, KLC fotos

“Omigosh, I think I almost started crying in the moment, to be honest,” Rogers said in a phone interview. “Everything you’ve done comes up to that moment. It was just so exciting. Coach Mo (Saatara) was absolutely ecstatic.”

Here’s what else the 2021 Canadian Olympian achieved on Thursday:

— She became just the second Cal athlete to win the same event three straight times at the NCAA outdoor championships, joining triple jumper Sheila Hudson (1988-89-90).

— She is the second woman to win the NCAA hammer throw crown three times, following SMU’s Florence Ezeh, a native of France, who won in 1999-00-01.

— Rogers completes her college career with the 11 longest throws in college history, including five of those in a remarkably consistent series on Thursday.

— How good was her winning throw? It would have earned her a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, where she finished fifth. “We’re getting experienced with those distances,” said Rogers, surprised her mark would have prevailed at the Games.

— Her mark of 77.67 meters elevates Rogers from No. 21 to No. 9 on the all-time world list.

— She extended her win streak against college opponents to 18 consecutive meets, dating back to April 2019. On that occasion, at the Beach Invitational at Long Beach, UCLA’s Alyssa Wilson defeated Rogers by three inches.

Camryn Rogers throws series
Camryn Rogers' series of throws at the NCAA Championships / NCAA

Wilson, now competing for Texas State, finished second on Thursday with a lifetime-best throw of 245-5 (74.78). She made it a good competition, but Rogers had the five best throws of the afternoon.

Rogers’ record throw came in the fifth round and improves her No. 4 spot on the 2022 world list.

She was perhaps most pleased with her series, which she called her best ever. “It’s really exciting to see that happen in my last NCAAs, when it counts the most,” she said. “Coach Mo and I have been working and training for this the entire year and even before this year.”

Rogers will represent Canada at the World Championships in Eugene next month, but the NCAAs was her last time wearing a Cal singlet.

"I truly couldn’t be happier. I think that coach and I have worked this whole year to kind of end off in this way,” she said. “To do it knowing there is more to come, even in this year, is absolutely awesome.”

Cal’s Anna Purchase, a junior from England, fouled four times in six rounds but finished seventh with a mark of 227-6 (69.34).

Meanwhile, decathlete Hakim McMorris’s promising Day 1 dissolved when he fell from fourth to 11th place after discus, then no-heighted in the pole vault.

Seeded eighth entering the competition, McMorris hoped to secure a top-5 finish and challenge Mike Morrison’s 11-year-old school record of 8118 points.

Instead, he wound up in 19th place with 6598 points. Ayden Owens-Delerme of Arkansas won the two-day competition with a meet-record score of 8457.

McMorris, who scored a personal-best 7941 points at the Mt. SAC Relays in April, started strong on Thursday. He ran the 110 hurdles in 14.26 seconds, the third-fastest time of the day, to score 941 points.

The discus was McMorris’s only bad event at Mt. SAC, where he threw just 97-6 — 34 feet off his best. He was better on Thursday, throwing 114-9 in the first round, then fouled twice.

He then missed three times at his opening height of 13-9 3/4 (4.21) in the pole vault, giving him zero points for the event and dooming his chances of a comeback.

He recovered some in the javelin with a throw of 159-4 (48.47), then closed a tough day by running the 1,500 meters in 4:45.59.

Senior Ezinne Abba, who sustained an undisclosed injury two weeks ago at the NCAA prelims, failed to qualify for the 100-meter final after placing fifth in her semifinal heat. Her time of 11.22 seconds was 15th overall, and off her school-record mark of 11.12.

Nine runners from three heats advanced to Saturday’s final, topped by Julien Alfred of Texas and Abby Steiner of Kentucky, who both clocked 10.90.

The Cal foursome of Jada Hicks, Jordyn Grady, Maisie Stevens and Aysha Shaheed, minus Abba, ran 44.53 to finish fifth in their heat and 18th overall in the 4x100 relay semifinals.

Cover photo of Camryn Rogers by Al Sermeno, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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Jeff Faraudo
JEFF FARAUDO

Jeff Faraudo was a sports writer for Bay Area daily newspapers since he was 17 years old, and was the Oakland Tribune's Cal beat writer for 24 years. He covered eight Final Fours, four NBA Finals and four Summer Olympics. 

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