2025 BU Terrier Day 1: Olympians Nikki Hiltz, Elise Cranny, & Whittni Morgan Earn Big Wins as Lexy Halladay-Lowry Joins Sub 15 Club
Cranny (4:20) won the mile, Hiltz (8:32) the 3k and Morgan (14:48) the 5k
By Jonathan GaultBOSTON — A big weekend of track & field in Boston kicked off at Boston University on Friday as US Olympians Elise Cranny (4:20.83 mile), Nikki Hiltz (8:32.52 in 3,000), and Whittni Morgan (14:48.41 in 5,000) all began their 2025 seasons with convincing victories. All three will race next weekend at the Millrose Games, Cranny and Hiltz in a loaded women’s mile and Morgan in the 3,000. Morgan’s time was especially noteworthy as it was a five-second improvement from her personal best set at the Paris Olympics and was under the 14:50 auto standard for the 2025 World Championships.
Earlier in the day, BYU’s Meghan Hunter (2:00.21) had the fastest time of the day in the women’s 800 from heat 2, moving to #5 on the all-time NCAA indoor list as Olympic finalist Juliette Whittaker of Stanford was only 6th in heat 1 in 2:02.39. It was a big day for BYU overall as Lexy Halladay-Lowry ran 14:57.63 to become the fourth collegiate woman (and just second American) to break 15:00 in the 5,000 and Riley Chamberlain (4:26.19) moved to #5 on the all-time NCAA list in the women’s mile.
Highlights and analysis of the top events below.
Women’s mile: Cranny blasts 4:20.83 pb to move to #4 on all-time US indoor list
Elise Cranny convincingly won the women’s mile, dropping Gabbi Jennings over the second half of the race once pacer Brooke Feldmeier dropped out. But while Cranny was pleased with the time, she was more focused on her final 600m split. And while she wound up dropping the pace down to 31.92 on her third-to-last lap, she could go no faster, running 32.05 and 32.57 for her last two.
“I wish I would have squeezed a little bit more the last 200,” Cranny said.
Of course, it is harder to close it down at the end of the race when you have no one to chase. But Cranny knows she needs to be ready to go in her next mile, eight days from now at Millrose against Olympic medalists Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell.
“I want to be really ready for that Millrose mile, because it’s stacked,” Cranny said.
Before then, Cranny is doubling back for the 3,000 at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Sunday (also against Hull and Bell). Part of the reason is to mimic doubling off of one day of rest – which she will do four times this spring as part of Grand Slam Track. The other part is to get in some extra speed work. Most of Cranny’s training right now is strength-oriented as she is targeting a fast 10,000 at The Ten on March 29 (she’s skipping USA Indoors and World Indoors as a result). Races are her best opportunity to get her legs turning over.
Though Cranny has made every US team outdoors since 2021, she has been through a number of changes in her training setup during that span. First, the Bowerman Track Club moved from Portland to Eugene in 2022. Then she left BTC for Team Boss at the end of 2023 only to change coaches to Northern Arizona University assistant Jarred Cornfield in March 2024 (she now splits time between Boulder and Flagstaff). Cranny, 28, still had some brilliant performances last year, running pbs of 3:57 and 8:25 in the 1500 and 3000, but she is hoping a healthy, stable fall of training will lead to an even better season in 2025.
“The last couple years, I feel like, have just been really inconsistent for me,” Cranny said. “I’ll have a really good race or a couple races and then one where I don’t know what happens. And I think a lot of that is not having the consistency and just missing some time. So the fall has been really nice for that.”
Behind Cranny, Team Boss’s Gabbi Jennings took 2nd in 4:25.32 while BYU’s Riley Chamberlain ran 4:26.19. Chamberlain, who anchored BYU to victory in the NCAA DMR in Boston last year, is now #5 on the all-time NCAA list in the women’s mile. Four of the top five times have been run in the last three years.
NCAA Women’s Mile All-Time List
1. 4:24.26 Katelyn Tuohy, NC State 2023
2. 4:24.83 Maia Ramsden, Harvard 2024
3. 4:25.89 Wilma Nielsen, Oregon 2025
4. 4:25.91 Jenny Simpson, Colorado 2009
5. 4:26.19 Riley Chamberlain, BYU 2025
Top 10 Results Women’s Mile BU
Place | Athlete | Time | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() |
Elise Cranny
Nike
|
4:20.83
|
2 | ![]() |
Gabbi Jennings
Adidas
|
4:25.32
|
3 | ![]() |
Riley Chamberlain
BYU
|
4:26.19
|
4 | ![]() |
Abbe Goldstein
USA
|
4:28.61
|
5 | ![]() |
Berenice Cleyet-merle
Nike
|
4:29.10
|
6 | ![]() |
Anna Camp Bennett
Adidas
|
4:29.76
|
7 | ![]() |
Kate Mitchell
New Balance
|
4:30.21
|
8 | ![]() |
Hollie Parker
Brighton Phoenix TC
|
4:31.62
|
9 | ![]() |
Shannon Flockhart
Providence
|
4:31.71
|
10 | ![]() |
Hannah Steelman
On
|
4:33.00
|
Women’s 3,000: Hiltz opens up 2025 with convincing win
Like Cranny, Hiltz will be part of the loaded women’s Wanamaker Mile field at Millrose and wanted to race a 3,000 in Boston to keep their (Hiltz is female but prefers the they/them pronouns) options open for the USATF Indoor Championships. The women’s 3,000 at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix across town on Sunday features one of the strongest fields of the meet. Hiltz admitted that they were dodging the competition by running at BU but said there were a number of factors that went into the decision to run at BU. Hiltz noted that racing on Friday rather than Sunday would give them a little extra time to recover for Millrose next Saturday and that logistically it made sense to run BU given their coach Mike Smith also had college athletes racing there.
“All the time in college, you see coaches have an athlete who could be in the A race and get dragged to a good time or they could go to the B race and win and dominate and get that confidence,” Hiltz said. “So I feel like I’m kind of mimicking that at the professional level. I kind of just want to go kick some college kid’s ass and get my confidence up.”
That said, it wasn’t all college kids in today’s field. Australian pro Linden Hall, a three-time Olympian who ran 3:56 for 1500 last year, led much of the race and even opened a gap, but could not totally shake Hiltz, who took the lead just before the bell and looked strong in closing with a 29.64 final 200 for the win.
Hiltz won’t be dodging Jessica Hull or Georgia Bell next week as they are all racing their specialty distance of the mile at Millrose.
As for the rest of the season, Hiltz will race at USA Indoors in either the 1500 or 3000 but will not run at World Indoors if they made the team as the meet is just two weeks before the first Grand Slam Track meet.
Behind Hiltz and Hall (2nd in a pb of 8:35.17), Stanford’s Amy Bunnage of Australia ran an NCAA-leading 8:43.82 for 3rd with Providence’s Kimberley May running 8:44.73 for 4th. Bunnage and May now rank #6 and #7 on the all-time NCAA list.
Top 10 Results from Women’s 3000
Place | Athlete | Time | Heat | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() |
Nikki Hiltz
Luluemon
|
8:32.52
|
1 |
2 | ![]() |
Linden Hall
Puma
|
8:35.17
|
1 |
3 | ![]() |
Amy Bunnage
Stanford
|
8:43.82
|
1 |
4 | ![]() |
Kimberley May
Providence
|
8:44.73
|
1 |
5 | ![]() |
Elise Thorner
New Balance
|
8:47.36
|
1 |
6 | ![]() |
Taryn Rawlings
Adidas
|
8:48.95
|
1 |
7 | ![]() |
Cari Hughes
OAC Europe
|
8:49.78
|
1 |
8 | ![]() |
Katie Camarena
Saucony
|
8:53.27
|
1 |
9 | ![]() |
Alex Carlson
Northern Arizona
|
8:53.77
|
1 |
10 | ![]() |
Sophia Kennedy
Stanford
|
8:54.06
|
1 |
Women’s 5,000: Morgan’s pb leads a big day for Diljeet Taylor’s group
The 5,000 was a very successful race for Diljeet Taylor — between her pro group in Provo and her BYU college team, she coached the 1st (Whittni Morgan, 14:48.41), 2nd (Ella Donaghu, 14:50.89), and 4th-place (Lexy Halladay-Lowry, 14:57.63) finishers in tonight’s race.
Morgan, who finished 14th in the Olympic 5,000, got some nice pacing help from Hiltz through 2600m, but after that she was on her own and held on to win and dip under the Worlds standard. Morgan has battled injuries throughout her career — she bounced back from knee surgery in November 2023 to make the Olympic team — but said she has been healthy for almost a year now, one of the longest stretches of her career. Morgan said she wants to take advantage of it and plans on running a full indoor season, including World Indoors in China if she makes the team.
“I need to get more races under me,” Morgan said. “I’ve had injuries and stuff so I’ve gotta capitalize.”
At the start of the 2023-24 indoor season, no NCAA woman had ever broken 15:00 for 5,000 meters. But Parker Valby banged down the door by running 14:56 on this track in December 2023, and in the 14 months since, three more collegians have followed. Kenyans Doris Lemngole of Alabama and Hilda Olemomoi of Florida both joined the club in December 2024, and now Halladay-Lowry makes it two American collegians under the barrier.
Halladay-Lowry was “only” 14th at NCAA XC in November as she battled an injury in the fall. But she ran 15:02 while redshirting last spring and knew she was capable of sub-15:00 tonight.
“Based off of workouts, that’s what it said I could do, but then again, doing it in practice and doing it in a race are two completely different things,” Halladay-Lowry said. “So to be able to string it together in a race was really magical. And I feel like I’m getting better at that with confidence and experience and age.”
Top 10 5000m Boston University Meet
Place | Athlete | Time | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() |
Whittni Morgan
Adidas
|
14:48.41
|
2 | ![]() |
Ella Donaghu
Nike
|
14:50.89
|
3 | ![]() |
Bailey Hertenstein
Nike
|
14:56.33
|
4 | ![]() |
Lexy Halladay-Lowry
BYU
|
14:57.63
|
5 | ![]() |
Annie Rodenfels
Unattached
|
15:00.64
|
6 | ![]() |
Simone Plourde
Nike
|
15:01.21
|
7 | ![]() |
Lauren Ryan
Under Armour
|
15:08.58
|
8 | ![]() |
Jess McClain
Brooks
|
15:09.50
|
9 | ![]() |
courtney wayment
On
|
15:10.99
|
10 | ![]() |
Elise Stearns
Northern Arizona
|
15:21.43
|
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