University of Northern Iowa Athletics
University of Northern Iowa
NCAA Indoor Championships
Carter Morton finishes fifth in NCAA indoor heptathlon
3/15/2025 2:06:00 PM | Track and Field
Panther earns First Team All-American honors with a new career-best score.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — UNI redshirt senior Carter Morton rounded out the indoor track and field season for the Panthers on Saturday with a career-best score to place fifth in the heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Scoring 5,852 points, the second-most in program history, Morton earned First Team All-American recognition for his top-eight finish. The Jefferson, Iowa native notably topped the 16-man field in both the long jump and high jump, two events that he swept at the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Indoor Championships earlier this month.
Morton's fifth-place effort is the highest finish for a Panther in the NCAA heptathlon since Raven Cepeda placed third in 2007. He also becomes the first Northern Iowa track and field athlete to earn First Team All-American honors since Tyler Mulder finished third in the 800-meter run in 2009.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Morton opened the seven-event competition on Friday with a time of 7.11 seconds to take 14th in the 60-meter dash. He would bounce back with the top performance in the long jump with a 7.38-meter leap on his second attempt, narrowly beating out Jack Turner (Arkansas) by one-quarter of an inch.
Following a 12.38-meter toss and 12th place effort in the shot put, Morton closed out the first day of action with a winning effort in the high jump, narrowly missing a new career-best mark with a 2.09-meter jump, besting Ben Barton (BYU) by one and one-quarter of an inch.
In the 60-meter hurdles on Saturday, Morton opened the day with a new career-best time of 8.28 seconds, shaving three-hundredths of a second off his previous best time from the 2023 Hawkeye Invite. The pole vault would be a breakthrough showing for Morton as he finished fourth in the pole vault while setting a new career-best mark of 4.97 meters with a two and three-quarters of an inch improvement. Morton closed the afternoon by clocking a 2:49.29 in the 1,000-meter run.
HEPTATHLON RESULTS (2025 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships)
- 1st - Peyton Bair (Mississippi State) - 6,013
- 2nd - Jack Turner (Arkansas) - 5,962
- 3rd - Edgar Campre (Miami-FL) - 5,934
- 4th - Ben Barton (BYU) - 5,898
- 5th - Carter Morton (UNI) - 5,852
- 6th - Abraham Vogelsang (Iowa) - 5,810
- 7th - Kenneth Byrd (Louisville) - 5,807
- 8th - Justin Abrams (Cincinnati) - 5,799
- 9th - Alexander Jung (Kansas) - 5,752
- 10th - Thai Thompson (Iowa State) - 5,690
- 11th - Blake Harris (Texas A&M) - 5,659
- 12th - Jami Schlueter (Washington) - 5,619
- 13th - Nathaniel Paris (Virginia Tech) - 5,617
- 14th - Cole Wilson (High Point) - 5,571
- 15th - Seth Johnson (Cal) - 5,441
- DNF - Jip DeGreef (Illinois)
UP NEXT
The Panthers return to action March 27-28 at the WashU Distance Carnival at Francis Olympic Field in St. Louis to open the 2025 outdoor season.
UNI track and field action can be followed all season long on social media on Facebook (UNI Track and Field), X (@UNITrackFieldXC) and on Instagram (@uni_tf_xc). Schedules and rosters, along with the latest Panther news and information can be found online at UNIpanthers.com.
Players Mentioned
