For the first time in 31 years, teammates finished 1-2 in the women’s 800 metres at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. It wasn’t a surprise. The same two Stanford runners finished 1-2 in the 2023 Indoor Championships.
Juliette Whittaker and Roisin Willis, friends from the national youth track circuit, finished first and second in Eugene, Oregon, despite being only sophomores. They each delivered a crushing kick. Whittaker took the lead with 80 meters remaining and extended it to the finish line, while Willis passed five on the homestretch to emerge from sixth on the last turn.
Whittaker, coached by J.J. Clark, Stanford’s Franklin P. Johnson Director of Track and Field and Cross Country, is the first woman to win both NCAA indoor and outdoor 800 titles in the same year since Oregon’s Raevyn Rogers in 2017. Willis won the 2023 indoor title, and the two combined to win the indoor distance medley relay championship the same year, for a total of four NCAA titles in two years.
The squad relied heavily on upperclassmen, including distance runners Grace Connolly and Lucy Jenks, sprinters Maya Valmon and Cydney Wright, and 400 hurdler Samantha Thomas. However, the team’s youth was evident at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. The five Stanford women who qualified as individuals were all freshmen or sophomores.
Alyssa Jones ranks first among the 800-meter stars. Jones finished third in the long jump at both the NCAA indoor and outdoor finals, after placing fourth and second as a freshman.
Jones lead in dramatic competitions throughout both NCAA outdoor championships.
Jones demonstrated another depth of her abilities during the indoor season when she attempted the pentathlon for the first time and shattered the school record with 4,127 points. Jones qualified for the NCAA Championships in the pentathlon, but chose to concentrate on the long and high jumps. In the future, she may focus on the pentathlon at the NCAA Championships.
Amy Bunnage, an 18-year-old freshman, broke both the Australian under-20 and Stanford indoor records in one of the most impressive individual efforts of the year, clocking in at 15:11.68 for 5,000 meters. Running on the 307-meter flat track at Dempsey Indoor, her time ranked fourth fastest in collegiate history across all indoor tracks, including larger venues like this one.
Bunnage would finish 17th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships to cap off a fantastic rookie campaign. It capped off a year in which she finished as Stanford’s top runner at the NCAA cross country meet and became the first freshman to win the Pac-12 Cross Country Championships in 24 years.
In the 5,000 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Bunnage was not by himself. Sophia Kennedy, a teammate, finished the race in 11th place and was named to the second team of the All-America squad. Kennedy set a freshman outdoor record at Stanford with a timing of 15:33.29.
Stanford has produced an NCAA women’s outdoor 5,000 finalist 22 times in 23 seasons—including 14 straight seasons—with Bunnage and Kennedy.
In total, Stanford produced nine women who were named All-Americans, for a total of 17 All-America titles.
As the last athlete representing Stanford in any sport for the 2023–24 academic year, Bunnage’s victory in Eugene marked the official end of Stanford’s affiliation with the Pac-12 Conference. In 1919, Stanford track and field made its debut as a member of the Pacific Coast Conference. Together, Pac-12 universities have won 106 NCAA cross country, indoor, and outdoor track and field championships for men and women.
The Pac-12 era has come to an end, and the Atlantic Coast Conference era is about to begin.
