Vanderbilt Track and Field concluded its 2023-24 campaign at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., from June 6-8. Three Commodores — Veronica Fraley, Lena Gooden and Sarah Omoregie — advanced to Eugene after the NCAA Regionals two weeks prior.
Fraley — already an All-American, SEC Field Athlete of the Year, SEC Championship shot-put winner and discus runner-up — stole the show. On June 8 she became the third Commodore to ever win an NCAA individual championship, following Gordon Sargent in men’s golf (2022) and Ryan Tolbert in track and field (1997). The graduate student’s discus throw of 63.66 meters beat out Louisville’s Jayden Ulrich’s 63.05 meters to clinch the crown and put a cap on a prolific five-year career that took Fraley from Clemson to Nashville.
“[The title] puts us past the vision and the idea of building an elite program to actually being [one],” director of track and field Althea Thomas said. “Having a champion and having the stats and the facts to back up the work we’ve been doing … I can see and feel the transition from a vision to being a contender.”
The freshman Gooden earned second-team All-American honors in the long jump as she leapt 6.22 meters and finished in 16th place. Among freshmen, she placed third behind only Ida Breigan of Texas-San Antonio and Aaliyah Foster of Texas-Austin.
“What [Gooden] did is utterly amazing,” Thomas said. “Lena represents the freshmen class and the underclassmen we have and how hard they’ve worked. She doesn’t represent herself alone. She represents what the culture is.”
In the shot put, Omoregie threw for 17.35 meters to place seventh among all competitors. The top-ten mark was good enough for a first-team All-American selection.
Between its three competitors, Vanderbilt amassed 12 team points and finished 23rd out of over 100 universities. Though a slight step down from the Commodores’ 20th-place finish a season prior, the placement was still good enough for the third-highest in program history.
“I think in any successful career, in any genre, it doesn’t have to be sports, you have an appreciation for where you are and you have a hunger to continue to do it,” Thomas said. “Once you have a taste of it, and once you see all the things come to fruition … you want more.”
