By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
For the last two indoor seasons, Demario Prince could taste victory.
He had his eyes set for the finals in the 60-meter hurdles. He aimed at making a name for himself as a freshman in 2024, but missed the finals by one one-hundredth of a second (0.01).
It seemed like Prince could not get any closer to the next stage. The 2025 NCAA Indoor Championships had another plan. Prince fell short of the finals by nine thousandths of a second (0.009). A difference comparable to the time it takes the human brain to process what the eye sees ended Prince’s hopes of advancing.
“I finished ninth two years in a row,” Prince said. “That’s kind of painful, so I’ve always got that in the back of my mind.”
Falling short by the slimmest of margins is part of indoor track, particularly in short races, and Prince had to learn that the hard way.
“There’s smaller room for error,” Prince said. “That’s just the nature of indoor. It’s just about going out there and executing my best race.”
What proved to be the unfortunate reality for Prince served as his motivation going into a daunting field in 2026.
“We’ve all talked about making it to the final,” head coach Michael Ford said. “He’s worked hard, he deserves it.”
Prince came into Heat 1 of the preliminaries alongside some of the top hurdlers in the nation, including the reigning indoor 60-meter hurdles champion Ja’Kobe Tharp from Auburn and Texas Tech’s Malachi Snow.
Prince glided through his initial run but clipped the final hurdle to finish with a 7.49 time — his best across his three indoor championships appearances. He finally got over the hump as his time earned him a spot in the finals as the sixth-fastest in the prelims.
The finals looked to be an even taller task for Prince. The talent of the top eight hurdlers elevated his expectations so high that breaking a collegiate record could be the only way to win gold.
“It might take a record,” Prince said. “It’s great competition. I think this has been the most competitive 60 [meter] hurdles I’ve ever been in.”
Prince’s expectations were spot-on. The competitors in Saturday’s 60-meter finals lived up to the hype. Tharp broke the collegiate record with a 7.32 time en route to his second consecutive indoor national title while every hurdler in the finals finished in under 7.6 seconds.
Prince’s final run did not start according to plan as he knocked over the second hurdle. After that hiccup, he flew through the final three hurdles as he finished with a 7.48 and earned bronze for the first time in his indoor career.
“He hit hurdle two, and it threw him off a little bit,” Ford said. “In this meet, you don’t really have to do anything different in the final. If you just run what you’ve been doing all year, you’ll do well.”
Prince joined senior sprinter Tiriah Kelley, who won bronze in the 200 meters with a time of 22.64 seconds, and junior Molly Haywood, who finished fourth in the pole vault. The trio all earned All-American honors, while Prince became the first Bear to do so in the 60-meter hurdles since 2006.
“The big meets are the ones where you’re either going to thrive off the pressure or you can kind of crumble,” Haywood said. “[It’s] just being able to go out there and do what we come here [to do].”
Baylor opens its outdoor season Friday at the TCU Alumni Invitational at Lowdon Track and Field Complex in Fort Worth.
