800 Meters Official Results

EUGENE, Ore.--Sophomore middle distance runner Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Dublin, Ireland) made her first career appearance at the outdoor NCAA Championships and came in 10th overall in the semifinal heats of the 800 meters at Hayward Field on Thursday evening. Cleirigh Buttner came in fourth in her heat with a time of 2:04.72 to wrap up an impressive sophomore campaign. She was the first Villanova runner since 2008 to compete at the outdoor national championships in the 800 meters.

In the last of three semifinal heats, Cleirigh Buttner deftly moved through the pack of runners during the final lap and had put herself in contention for the lead heading into the final turn. She was forced towards the outside entering the last straightaway of what turned into a tightly packed and physical race. The top three finishers in the heat separated themselves in the final 50 meters and Cleirigh Buttner wound up fourth in the heat and 10th overall out of 24 qualifiers for the NCAA meet.

The top two runners in each heat and the next two fastest times each advanced to the final. Cleirigh Buttner tallied the third-fastest outdoor time of her collegiate career with the mark of 2:04.72 and was less than four-tenths of a second off of the last on-time qualifying spot.

As a freshman last season, Cleirigh Buttner came on strong late in the year and wound up being the fastest non-qualifier for the NCAA Championships after competing at the NCAA East Preliminary meet. She took the next step as a sophomore this season, getting stronger with each successive meet and reaching the national meet as an automatic qualifier out of both the national first round and quarterfinal heats two weeks ago.

Along the way to advancing to the NCAA Championships, Cleirigh Buttner won the BIG EAST title in the 800 meters and also anchored the Wildcats to an All-BIG EAST finish in the 4x800 meter relay at the conference championships in Ohio. Her signature moment of the 2016 outdoor season however, came in April when she was the anchor of Villanova's 4x1500 meter relay squad which won a Championship of America title at the Penn Relays. During the season she also recorded a personal best time of 2:03.52 in the 800 meters at the Larry Ellis Invitational in April.

Cleirigh Buttner is ranked seventh in school history on the performance list for the 800 meters, including being the indoor school record holder in the event. Her time of 2:03.74 at the FastTrack National Invite in February eclipsed the Wildcats previous indoor standard of 2:04.69 which had stood for 28 years. Cleirigh Buttner went on to be a second team All-American in the 800 meters for the indoor season and will repeat that honor outdoors when All-America selections are announced next week.

Villanova has had at least one qualifier for the outdoor NCAA Championships in each of the last 14 seasons and in 32 of the 35 years in all since the meet began.