Washington alum Mel Lawrence sets championship & stadium record in winning NACAC steeple title...

TORONTO—University of Washington alum Mel Lawrence (left/photo by Paul Merca) did not let a small field deter her, as she won the 3000 meter steeplechase Friday night at the North American Central American & Caribbean (NACAC) track & field championships at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto.

Lawrence and fellow Team USATF runners Emily Oren and Megan Rolland agreed to each take turns leading for the first part of the race. 

Just past the five-minute mark in the race, Lawrence decided to go it alone, and pulled away from her teammates to win in a comfortable time of 9:45.36, which set a new championship meet record, eclipsing the old meet record of 9:56.75 set by the USA’s Ashley Higginson, and the stadium record of 10:13.04.

Oren was second in 9:56.66, with Rolland third in 9:59.85.

“I didn’t know until we went into the call room that we were the only three runners in the field. I was looking to maybe dip under 9:30. But finding out that we were the only three in the race, plus having the race delayed by 45 minutes (due to a medical emergency on the track) made us change our race plans, so we decided to go ahead and work together."

“I saw our mile time, and I thought to myself ‘we should pick it up’. With three laps to go, I felt really good.”

Lawrence’s gold medal was one of five earned by the Americans in the first day of the three-day meet. American athletes won a total of 18 medals Friday.

In the meet’s first event of the day, Bellevue’s Katie Burnett finished third in the women’s 20K race walk, finishing the 10-laps of 2k each in 1:39:31, as Maria Michta-Coffey won in 1:36:34.

Former University of Washington graduate assistant coach and reigning Canadian champion Christie (Gordon) Moerman earned the last qualifying spot in the 100 hurdles, running 13.35 to finish forth in her heat.

Former Renton resident Devon Allen ran the fastest time of the day in the qualifying round of the 110 hurdles, winning his heat in 13.37.

Saturday, Pullman resident Katie Nageotte competes in the pole vault, which is one of the meet’s premier events, starting at 3:30 pm, local time (12:30 pm in Seattle).

Moehman runs in the finals of the 100 hurdles at 4:55 pm local time (1:55 pm in Seattle), while Allen runs in the finals of the 110 hurdles at 5:05 pm (2:05 pm in Seattle).

Complete results of the meet are available here.

Media partner RunnerSpace.com will have live streaming coverage ($) of the NACAC Championships through the athleticscanada.tv portal.

NOTE:  Athletics Canada contributed to this report.