NEW ORLEANS, La. – Five members of the Aztec track and field team were named All-Americans for the indoor season by the USTFCCCA Tuesday morning. Asia Smith (pentathlon) and the 4x400m relay team of Danae Dyer, Jalyn Harris, Nyjari McNeil and Sakura Roberson earned the recognition after qualifying for the NCAA Indoor Championships, but the meet was canceled due to concerns surrounding COVID-19.
Smith, a junior from Escondido, Calif., won the gold medal in the pentathlon at the Mountain West Indoor Championships with 4,075 points, the second most in SDSU's indoor history. Smith set new PR's in all five events, winning the shot put and long jump and taking second in the 60m hurdles and high jump. Her high jump mark of 5-07.00 (1.70m), tied for the third highest jump in school history.
Smith was set to be one of just three pentathletes from non-power five schools to compete at the NCAAs. Her score was the 15th highest in the nation this season. She was scheduled to be the first Aztec pentathlete to compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships since 2014 (Allison Reaser).
The Aztec 4x400m relay team also won the gold medal at the Mountain West Indoor Championships with a time of 3:35.65. Earlier this year at the New Mexico Collegiate Classic (Feb. 7), they posted a time of 3:33.81 to beat the previous school record by nearly six seconds. SDSU would have entered the NCAAs with the 11th-best time.
This was the first time an Aztec 4x400m relay team qualified the NCAA Indoor Championships and SDSU was the only non-power five relay team to qualify.
Due to the cancellation of the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Indoor Track & Field Championships, the Executive Committee adopted the following criteria:
- Based on the post-medical scratches startlist for the national championships the following will be recognized as All-America for the 2020 indoor track & field season:
- Individual events: ALL student-athletes listed on the startlist for the anticipated event.
- Relay events: The four student-athletes per anticipated relay who produced the performance that was declared and accepted into their event. Those listed as alternates will not be recognized.
- There will not be a distinction of "first-team", "second-team", or "honorable mention" to these recognitions.
This is the first USTCCCA Indoor All-America honor for all five Aztecs. Jalyn Harris, Nyjari McNeil and Sakura Roberson earned Second-Team All-America honors for the 2019 outdoor season and Harris was an honorable mention selection in the 2018 outdoor season.