Liberty runner sets school record to qualify for NCAA steeplechase finals

Liberty University’s Calli Doan continued her history-making season, Thursday evening at the 2023 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Austin, Texas. She lowered her own women’s steeplechase program record to 9 minutes, 52.15 seconds at Mike A. Myers Stadium, successfully advancing to Saturday’s final.

Doan will be the first women’s steeplechase runner in Liberty and ASUN Conference history to race in the NCAA Division I national final. That race will take place Saturday at 9:24 p.m. EST, televised live on ESPN2.

Her path to the final was a harrowing one. Coming down the last straightaway of the first semifinal heat, Doan was part of a three-way sprint for two automatic qualifying berths, sandwiched between Butler’s Angelina Ellis and New Mexico’s Maisie Grice. Doan was the odd woman out, as her time of 9:52.15 left her just one hundredth of a second behind Grice’s 9:52.14, which garnered the fifth and final automatic qualifier to the final.

Doan was then forced to sweat it out (literally, on an 85-degree evening) during the second semifinal. Only one runner outside the top five in that section (Arkansas State’s Pauline Meyer) bettered Doan’s time, giving her the second and final time qualifier to Saturday’s 12-runner final.

Due to the steamy conditions, Doan and BYU’s Lexy Halladay-Lowry were the only two runners to post personal-best times during Thursday’s pair of semifinals. Doan shaved exactly five seconds off her own program record (9:57.15), set in much cooler weather at the Stanford Invitational on March 31.

Doan, who earned All-America honors at the 2021 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, has now guaranteed her first track & field All-America notation. On Saturday, Doan will become Liberty’s first women’s track & field All-American since 2016, when Ednah Kurgat placed fourth in the outdoor women’s 5K final.

Doan continues writing an underdog story. She missed the entire 2022 outdoor track & field season due to injury and qualified for Austin this season after overcoming a fall in the quarterfinal round. Now Doan has moved on to the national final despite boasting the 21st-fastest personal best among the 24 steeplechase runners entering the meet.

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