JOURNAL SPORTS
EUGENE, Oregon – Running a clean race paid off in a major way Wednesday night for Parkway product Will Achee and the Northwestern State 4×400 meter relay team in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
The Demons’ foursome of Kason Jones, Charlie Bartholomew, Achee and Desmond Duncan earned second-team All-America honors after Texas and Ohio State were disqualified for lane violations, elevating NSU from its original 18th place to 16th, the cutoff between second-team and honorable mention All-America status.
A blazing third leg by Achee was pivotal, taking NSU from last (eighth) to fifth in the first of three heats against time.
Northwestern’s sophomore long jumper Roy Morris settled for honorable mention with a 19th-place finish on the heels of his second-team All-America freshman campaign.
The Demons 4×400 unit didn’t run its best time, almost two seconds slower than the school record 3:02.73 posted at the East regional to earn the trip to Eugene — but it was just enough. Their 3:04.68 ultimately claimed 16th by 0.15 over Kansas State, the difference between second-team and honorable mention.
In Heat 1, NSU drew the difficult No. 2 lane. Achee, a sophomore from Bossier City, ran a 44.99 split on the third leg to bring the Demons from eighth to fifth and Duncan, a senior from Winnfield, held on from there, outpacing foursomes from USC, Oklahoma State and Houston.
“That lane is definitely a tough one to run from,” associate head coach Adam Pennington said. “I thought the guys have it everything they had.”
Ohio State was bounced out of the nine-team Friday night finals by its disqualification. Texas had earned second-team All-America before officials upheld a protest and hooked the ‘Horns out of the 24-team field.
The Demons initially appeared to miss a spot on the All-America second team by 0.66 seconds.
NSU was 11th after two heats until Minnesota (3:04.12) and Mississippi State (3:03.40) posted slightly faster times in Heat 3 to relegate the Demons to 18th. But protests were filed and after meet officials reviewed footage of the heats, the Longhorns and Buckeyes were DQ’d.
The SEC dominated the competition with the top five times and six of the top eight. LSU won the prelims with a time of 3:00.54, followed by Arkansas (3:00.85) and Georgia (3:00.88).
Morris was aiming for his second straight All-America honor to cap his sophomore year, following second-team status in 2025. After earning his trip to Oregon with a 25-7 ¼ personal best mark two weeks ago at the East regional, Wednesday night’s first jump was 23-9 and he followed that up with a 23-1 ¾ mark before fouling on his third and final try.
The 16th place distance was 24-5 ½. Morris had finished over 25 feet in his last two competitions but was the 21st-ranked qualifier to reach Oregon’s Hayward Field.
Kansas State’s Tafadzwa Chikomba came in No. 1 in the country and proved it, dominating the competition with a jump of 27-5 ½.
“It was a great season and I’m extremely proud of Roy,” assistant coach Alex Wills said. “Today the cards weren’t in our favor, but we will learn and grow from it. To be able to be here two years in a row is an amazing blessing and the sky’s the limit with this amazing young man.”
Morris, an Evangel Christian product, is only the fourth NSU athlete in an individual event to reach the NCAA Outdoors in his freshman and sophomore seasons, joining all-time greats Brian Brown, Latrell Frederick and Cody Fillinich.
The first night of the NCAAs was highlighted by a stunning world record performance.
Auburn’s Ja’Kobe Tharp ran a blistering time of 12.75 in the 110-meter hurdles, the first time in 50 years a world record was broken at the NCAA Championships.