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Brenna Porter, Erica Birk-Jarvis lead BYU women as NCAA Track Championships conclude in Texas

BYU track star Erica Birk-Jarvis holds her 16-month-old son, Jack, after competing in a track meet on April 20, 2019 in Provo, Utah. Birk-Jarvis has continued her athletic career despite being a mother the past year. | Photo courtesy of Gabriel Mayberry, BYU photo

  | June 9, 2019, 1:01 a.m.

Fifth-place finishes by Brenna Porter in the women’s 400-meter hurdles and Erica Birk-Jarvis in the 3,000-meter steeplechase highlighted BYU’s day as the NCAA Track and Field championships concluded Saturday at Austin, Texas.

BYU’s women scored 10 points at the meet to tie for 25th place.

Porter, a senior from Sky View High who interrupted her track career to serve a church mission in Asuncion, Paraguay, ran a strong last 100 meters to post a time of 57.26 seconds.

Anna Cockrell of USC won the 400m hurdles at 55.23 seconds.

Birk-Jarvis of Coalville, the BYU senior who gave birth to a son, Jack, in December of 2017, was in second place for most of the 3,000-meter steeplechase, but stumbled in the water jump on the final lap and lost some ground. She finished fifth with a time of nine minutes, 46.47 seconds.

Birk-Jarvis posted a personal-best time of 9:42.54 at the West Preliminaries two weeks ago in Sacramento to finish second there.

Boise State’s Allie Ostrander won her third straight national championship in the event with a time of 9:37.73.

Panguitch’s Whittni Orton was 8th in the 1,500 meters with a time of 4:14.73. The BYU junior faded a bit down the stretch after being in the top four most of the race.

Andrea Stapleton-Johnson, who had the best high jump in the country this year going into the finals, missed at 5 feet, 11.25 inches and finished ninth. The senior from Kennewick, Wash., broke the BYU school record with a jump of 6 feet, 2.5 inches at the BYU Invitational last month.

BYU’s Anna Camp-Bennett, from Fillmore, was eighth in the women’s 800 meters to earn First-Team All-America honors with a time of 2:05.93.

The only other in-state athlete who was in action Saturday was Southern Utah’s Angie Nickerson, the school record-holder in the 5,000 meters. Nickerson placed 18th with a time of 16:38.08.

Friday, SUU’s Frank Harris finished seventh in the high jump, leaping 7 feet, 3 inches.

The men’s portion of the meet concluded Friday with BYU placing eighth, its best finish since 2011, when it was also eighth.