JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Vanderbilt junior Taiya Shelby is headed to Oregon and will represent Vanderbilt women’s track and field at the NCAA Championships. Shelby advanced through the quarterfinals of the 400 meters Saturday at the NCAA East Regionals.
“This was a great meet and they have everything to be proud of,” Vanderbilt head coach Steve Keith said of his Commodores. “We’re super happy to get Taiya to Oregon—she is finishing as well as anyone right now. Our relay almost pulled it off and Grace (Jenson) went from the 18 seed to a 14th-place finish in the 1500. I’m smiling and we’re proud of all of them.”
Shelby will compete in the NCAA semifinals at the NCAA championship meet in Eugene, Oregon, on June 9-12. Her semifinal race is at 7 p.m. CT on June 10 and the race for the 400-meter national title is at 6:02 p.m. on June 12.
In Saturday’s quarterfinals, Shelby became the second Commodore in school history and first in 24 years to break 52 seconds in the 400 meters. The top three in each heat automatically advanced to the semifinals and Shelby was fourth, but with the second-fastest finish in school history at 51.84,she punched her ticket to the national meet with one of the three best at-large times.
It ranked ninth overall among the field of 24.
“Shelby finished strong,” Keith said. “From the 200 she went from seventh to fourth in her race and caught a few in last 100. I could tell she was so focused on dropping more time from her prelim race to the quarters.”
A short while later, Shelby was also part of the second-fastest Vanderbilt 4×400 in school history. The relay team of Kaira Brown, Madison Fuller, Jordan Smith and Shelby finished in 3:35.06.
It was the fastest finish since the school record was set in 2015. The fourth-place finish in their heat was one spot from automatically qualifying for the NCAA Championships and their time was just 34-hundreths from qualifying.
“Donnie (Young) did a great job with the relay,” Keith said. “Changing the order really inspired efforts. Kaira had a great leadoff, Madison was in the mix, Taiya did all she could and Jordan almost held off Purdue in the last 50 to give us a chance. They are all hurting a little now being so close, but that is motivation they will use for the future.”
Jensen got things going for the Commodores at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium. She was in the second heat of the 1,500 meters and would automatically advance to the NCAA semifinals with a top-five finish.
The junior finished just two spots shy with a seventh-place showing in her heat and was 14th overall at 4:19.62.
Jensen finished the 2021 campaign ranked second in school history in the 1,500 meters (4:16.47) and ninth in the 800 meters (2:07.85).
Including Haley Bishop’s school record and a quartet of No. 2 times this weekend, Vanderbilt set five school records and recorded 33 top-10 performances during the 2021 outdoor season.
