University of Arizona track stars Brigetta Barrett and Lawi Lalang have been named finalists for The Bowerman, collegiate track and field’s highest honor. It is the second consecutive year that Barrett has been a finalist.
They are among three male and three female finalists for the award, which will be presented in December.
The other female finalsts are hurdlers Brianna Rollins of Clemson and Kori Carter of Stanford. The other male finalists are discus thrower Julian Wruck of UCLA and high jumper Derek Drouin of Indana.
Barrett, an Olympic silver medalist in 2012, closed out her collegiate career by sweeping the indoor and outdoor NCAA Division I high jump titles for the third consecutive season. She won her last 25 collegiate competitions and set the outdoor collegiate record with a jump of 6-6 1/4.
Her six NCAA high jump titles are the most in NCAA history, and she was named the women's Field Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association. In her first professional meet after concluding her college career, she cleared 6-8.25 to win the 2013 USA Championship. It was the second high jump in U.S. women's history, half an inch short of Chaunte Lowe's record.
Lalang, a senior to be, won four NCAA titles — two indoors and two outdoors — becoming the third man to win four individual distance titles in one academic year, joining 2009 Bowerman winner Galen Rupp of Oregon and Suleiman Nyambui of UTEP.
At the indoor championships, he won the one mile in 3 minutes, 54.74 seconds and ther 3,000 meters in 7:45.94. Both times are meet records. He added the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter titles at the outdoor championships. He also posted the fastest collegiate time in the 1,500 -- an event he bypassed at the national championship.
Following the conclusion of the college season, Lalang ran an all-time collegiate best time of 13:07.13 in the 10,000 while competing in an IAAF Golden Spikes meet in the Czech Republic.
In other track and field news, Arizona senior-to-be Julie Labote finished sixth in the women's shot put while competing for Canada in the World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
