The crowd was at its loudest on Saturday as Betsy Saina crossed the finish line in the women’s 5,000-meter run. The announcer said what the crowd was thinking: She qualified.

Saina qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships with a current national record of 15:35.09, just ahead of former teammate Aliphine Tuliamuk. Saina said with Tuliamuk right behind her, she could not have slowed down.

“When I started the race, I knew she would be right behind,” Saina said. “When I knew she was behind me, I tried to push the pace.”

About 10 laps into the race, Saina and Tuliamuk pulled away from the third- and fourth-place Meaghan Nelson and Dani Stack. Nelson and Stack were left to battle out the third-place position.

“I kind of figured Betsy was going to try and hammer it out because I know Betsy wants to kill the track,” Nelson said. “I kind of figured they were going to break away, so I just wanted to go out with them as long as I could and just run my own race after that.”

Nelson also qualified for Indoor Championships with a time of 15:51.89. Nelson said she came into the race with the goal of qualifying for the championships, but had another goal on the side.

“My first goal was to hit the qualifying time,” Nelson said. “Then I had a smaller goal to hit 15:50.00, so I was right around there.”

Coach Corey Ihmels said he was very pleased with how the distance runners performed in the meet.

“For Meaghan, that’s a huge [personal record]. I thought she battled the whole way,” Ihmels said. “And Betsy, she did the work. From about two or three laps in she was in the lead the whole way and had to do all the work. All the girls came to battle today and they did a good job.”

Saina had one thing on her mind all week, and that was to qualify for the Indoor Championships in the 5K. Now that she has done that, Saina said she will be back at work next week.

“We just have conference and nationals left, so I’ll be working for the 5K and the 3K,” Saina said. “I’m just happy to be going to nationals.”

The Big 12 Indoor Championships will be held in College Station, Texas, in two weeks. On March 9 and 10, the NCAA Indoor Championships will take place where ISU runners will compete against national competitors for titles in their events.