Rahn runs to NCAA history for track and field

Xenia Rahn didn’t just have a personal best performance.

She had a UNC best, an ACC best. And as a redshirt junior, the seventh-best pentathlon score in NCAA history and the 17th best in the world this year.

And it couldn’t have happened at a better place — the NCAA Division I Indoor National Championships.

The North Carolina men’s and women’s track and field teams sent seven athletes to Fayetteville, Ark., to compete on March 13 and 14. The women finished tied for 26th of 52, while the men finished tied for 51st of 62. Rahn, Lizzy Whelan and the men’s 4x400-meter relay team earned first team All-American honors, while AJ Hicks was named to the second team.

“I think it was a great meet for us,” Coach Harlis Meaders said. “I don’t think we were nervous. “We’re a veteran group.”

Rahn scored 4,450 points, breaking the pentathlon record she set two weeks earlier at the ACC Championships by 177 points.

“We worked really hard all season long in order to peak at this meet,” she said. “It didn’t come out of nowhere, but just being able to line it all up in one meet, that’s just awesome.”

During shot put, Rahn jumped to third place, which she held through long jump. Coming into the final event, the 800-meter run, she was slated to finish fourth overall based on her previous best time of 2:23.51.

Rahn said Coach Josh Langley told her in order to secure third, she had to keep within five seconds of Arkansas’ Alex Gochenour, who was in fourth place.

“I didn’t even run for time; I didn’t know my time at all,” she said. “I was just trying to stay with her, and then my last lap, I just went all out.”

Rahn crushed her PR with a 2:20.17 — 3.32 seconds behind Gochenour.

“I focused on myself and focused on what I can do,” she said. “I was trying to hit the marks I did at ACCs and just improve them by a little bit.”

Lizzy Whelan’s sixth-place finish in the 800-meter contributed three points to the women’s overall score. She was in the back of the pack for most of the race, moving up to sixth in the final 100 meters.

The men’s 4x400-meter team placed sixth and ran its best time this season.Meaders said this race was the first time everyone on the team was healthy.

“We took a lot of time off after ACCs to try to get healthy,” said Sean Sutton, a member of the team. “This was probably the best we felt all season.”

It was only Sutton’s third race of the season, and he ran the first leg of the relay.

“I wanted to go out there and execute the best I could to give the team the best lead I could give them,” he said. “So I was pretty satisfied to hand the baton off to Ceo (Ways) in first place because I knew we could probably handle it from there.”

Hicks competed for his first time at indoor nationals, throwing 20.8 meters in the weight throw for 10th place.

“He improved on his national ranking; he didn’t really improve on his farthest throw,” Meaders said.

Focused, but not nervous.

“Even though we sent a really small group, we all did so well,” Rahn said.

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