Liz Barre, Women's Track and Field

Liz Barre is an NCAA Division III National Champion!

Barre, who studies mechanical engineering, is a senior from Ithaca, New York, and a graduate of the Taft School in Connecticut.

Barre was a multisport athlete in high school, competing in soccer, ice hockey, and track, but she didn’t pick up pentathlon until her junior year at Carnegie Mellon.

As a junior, Barre earned All-America honors in the pentathlon at the 2022 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships with a seventh-place finish.

As Barre entered this year's national championship meet with a ninth-place seed after competing in just one pentathlon for the season, all she wanted to do was earn All-America status again.

There were familiar faces in the competition, as the athletes who placed second, third, and fourth this year were All-Americans last year.

“I knew those girls were very good and having a good season,” said Barre. “So, I thought if I could get as close to them as possible I could hopefully get top four or five.”

What Barre wasn’t expecting was to achieve personal records (PR) in nearly every event. It started with the first event – the 60-meter hurdles – when she took second place in 8.71 seconds.

“I’ve been consistently getting faster,” said Barre. “But I dropped my time by like .15 which is very significant in a 60-meter race. That really threw me off but was kind of fun because the girl I was racing against was from Ithaca, and I’m from Ithaca, and we both got across the line and were like ‘oh my gosh, we both PR’d’ and we were hugging and were both so shocked that we were starting off so strong.”

The next event was the high jump, one of Barre’s strongest events, as she was to compete in the open high jump the next day.

Barre cleared the bar at 1.70 meters to finish first and jumped ahead of Logan Bruce from Ithaca and held a slim 67-point lead entering the shot put. Despite placing ninth in the shot put with another personal record, Barre remained in first place, but now by just 65 points.

What came next was the biggest surprise of the meet for Barre – her long jump mark.

Barre had the fifth-best long jump mark entering the competition and her first jump of 5.29 meters was below her entry and school-record mark of 5.57 meters set at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships two weeks prior.

As she finished her second jump, a leap that put her 5.69 meters from the board, she couldn’t believe it.

“I jumped it, they told me the mark, and I was like, ‘no, that can’t be right,’” said Barre. “That was a big PR. I had been jumping probably a foot less for most of the season. I kept telling myself I have to jump again and the score they projected wasn’t correct.”

That jump catapulted her to the top of the leaderboard for the event, and it’s where she would stay as those seeded above her couldn’t match their own top marks from the season which were all farther than Barre’s new school record.

Barre hadn’t realized she placed first in the long jump and said she didn’t know she had a cushion before the last event, just that she was leading after the third event.

“We only had 30 minutes before the 800,” said Barre. “I knew beforehand the three girls I needed to beat or catch, and I overheard one say, ‘we really need to run PRs if we want to win this.’”

And Barre needed to run a PR if she was going to catch them.

Barre had only run the 800-meter race once this winter and her time of 2:41.59 was last out of the 20 competitors. Her previous best indoor 800 time was 2:39.22, set a full season ago during her first time running the event, and was still 10 seconds slower than Bruce’s time, 12 seconds off Grace Alley’s time, and two seconds behind Kennady Gibbins’ time, who were in third, fourth, and second place, respectively, before the last event.

“So, yea, I thought I just have to get as close to them as I can,” added Barre. “They were ahead of me the whole 800 race and I was just trying to stay on them as close as I could.”

Barre ran the PR she needed to run, finishing fourth in the heat (ninth overall) in 2:30.87, behind Alley and Bruce, but ahead of Gibbins, earning enough points to keep her at the top of the podium.

When asked to reflect on her mentality entering the meet Barre said, “I wanted to go in and have fun. I’ve been working all season toward this, and I wanted to try to keep it one event at a time and see how it adds up.

“It’s pretty awesome!” exclaimed Barre.” I didn’t believe it at first and it took a few days to sink in. Even after the 800, I didn’t know for like five minutes that I had won. I had my excitement but then I thought, ‘oh, I’m high jumping tomorrow.’ So, I went right back into competition mode. It wasn’t until we got home Sunday night that it settled in.”

Barre closed her senior campaign at the indoor national championships with two All-America finishes, her national championship in the pentathlon and a fourth-place showing in the high jump.

Two meets into the outdoor season, Barre is looking forward to competing with her teammates and making a run at a return trip to the outdoor national championships in the heptathlon and possibly a new event like the 100-meter hurdles.

Watch a recap of the event below.