SAN ANTONIO – The third time was the charm for Keturah Orji.

The only three-time female finalist in the history of The Bowerman took home collegiate track & field’s highest honor Thursday night inside the Grand Oaks Ballroom at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa during the 2018 USTFCCCA Convention. Orji, who came up short in 2016 and 2017 before she could finally cradle the 35-pound award in her arms in 2018, beat out Maggie Ewen and Sydney McLaughlin for the honor.

The native of Mount Olive, New Jersey, left little doubt as to why she finally deserved to be named the most outstanding female athlete in collegiate track & field.

Orji scored 38 points between the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships and the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. She swept the indoor and outdoor triple jump crowns and captured the first NCAA long jump title of her illustrious career with a leap of 6.67m (21-10¾) at Historic Hayward Field.

And if you’re talking numbers, then you better bring up 14.53m (47-8) and 14.62m (47-11¾). The first of which bettered her collegiate indoor record, while the latter mark smashed her collegiate outdoor record and left the competition at the SEC Championships in the dust.

Orji is the first female field event specialist to win The Bowerman and the first woman from the SEC to lay claim to the award since LSU’s Kimberlyn Duncan did so six years ago.