Knowing this would be her last track and field meet with the entire ISU team, senior Kendra White entered the Big 12 Outdoor Championship hoping to end with a bang.

Emptying the tank, White recorded a personal record in the preliminaries of the 400-meter dash on Saturday. Her time of 52.53 ranks her second all-time in the ISU record books in the event and qualified her for the finals. 

“She has shown a lot of good signs in practice and I thought that she was capable of that kind of performance,” said White’s coach, Glenn Smith. “I was a little surprised it came all at once so quickly. I thought there’d be a couple steps along the way.” 

White said leading up to the meet the goal was to run a sub-53 second time, even if it was 52.99.

“I cried for a good minute at the end just looking at my time, like thank you, God,” White said. “It’s what I’ve been working for and it finally paid off. My coach was happy for me — he gave me a hug afterward because finally the hard work is showing.”

Less than 24 hours later it was again time for White to exhaust the energy she had built up overnight. 

This time around, White had the wind to worry about. 

“Being that I’m in Iowa all the time, I knew there was a possibility that the weather could be like this — nice but really windy,” White said. “So I’ve practiced in this kind of weather before.” 

In the finals of the open 400-meter, White recorded her second fastest career time in the event.

“Yesterday, I ran a [personal record]. So running that and coming off of that, my body being sore, coming out here and running my second fastest time … it was a good one,” White said.

White’s time of 53.41 placed her sixth in the race, adding three points to the team’s total. 

“I love to help out the team,” White said. “I love my teammates so much. Getting the support from not just the sprint squad but from the distance and the jumpers and the throwers … it shows what Cyclone Nation is all about. It’s about the team, it’s about everybody working together.”

Fast forward a couple hours and White returned for thirds in the 400, this time leading off for Iowa State’s 4×400-meter relay. 

The relay team of White, junior Kaci Storm, freshman Evelyne Guay and redshirt senior Hannah Willms finished seventh in the event, adding two points for Iowa State. 

White wasn’t the only athlete to contribute for the Cyclones. Sophomore Marine Vallet finished third in the high jump, earning Iowa State six points, and fellow jumper Jhoanmy Luque added three points in the triple jump. 

In distance events, freshman Abby Caldwell scored a combined seven points with performances in the 3000-meter steeplechase and 5,000-meter run. Junior Perez Rotich duplicated that point total with performances in the 1,500-meter run and 5,000-meter run. Redshirt freshman Erin Hooker rounded out the scoring for the ISU distance squad, adding a point with an eighth place finish in the 5,000-meter. 

Junior Alyssa Gonzalez finished fifth in her lone event of the Big 12s, the 400-meter hurdles. Gonzalez’s performance added four points for Iowa State. 

Iowa State finished the meet with 59 points, placing eighth overall.