With so many accomplished women in the NCAA this past year, this prestigious list was a brutally tough one to crack. Here are the top-five NCAA female track and field athletes of 2018.

5. Dani Jones (Colorado)

The Colorado senior kicked past pre-race favorite Weini Kelati at NCAA XC to claim the individual victory in Madison and lead her team to a dominant title, CU’s first in 18 years. Her win on Nov. 17 put a bow on a spectacular 2018 for Jones, who finished runner-up in the NCAA mile in March before placing fifth in the USATF 1500m final in June.

Jones redshirted the outdoor season in 2018, but her sharp rise to become the NCAA’s top female distance runner has made her one of the top overall stars in the collegiate sport.

4. Kendall Ellis (USC)

No collegiate track fan will soon forget the dramatic 2018 NCAA women’s 4x400, where USC waged an epic comeback in the final leg to hunt down Purdue and steal the team title in one fell swoop. At the center of that lasting image of the NCAA season -- and fittingly, the final race at old Hayward Field -- was Kendall Ellis, who brought the Trojans back from the dead with a scintillating 50.05 anchor split. 

The clip of Ellis’ comeback quickly went viral, and it capped a marvelous final year for the senior. Ellis set the collegiate and American indoor 400m record in March (50.34) while anchoring USC to their second straight 4x400m crown indoors as well. She rocked the open 400m outdoors, too: her 49.99 400m at the Pac-12 Championships in May is just the third sub-50 performance in NCAA history.

3. Maggie Ewen (Arizona State)

Already the greatest hammer performer in NCAA history before 2018, Maggie Ewen added another superlative to her name this past season to make her the most prolific collegiate thrower ever: top NCAA shot putter of all time. The Arizona State senior improved leaps and bounds in the latter event in her final year in Tempe, going from a 17.72 PR in 2017 to 19.46, a heave that launched her to fourth in the world.

Ewen's success in the shot put and discus in 2018 -- she won both at NCAA outdoor -- helped atone for her shocking hammer foul in the NCAA West prelim that left the collegiate record holder and defending champion out of her strongest event at nationals. Still, Ewen left quite the legacy in her speciality despite the hiccup in Sacramento -- she has six hammer performances that rank in the NCAA top 10 all-time. 

2. Sydney McLaughlin (Kentucky)

Expectations were understandably sky-high for 2016 Olympian Sydney McLaughlin in her freshman season at Kentucky, and after smashing the NCAA and world junior record in the 400m hurdles and the indoor 400m world junior mark, it’s safe to say that she met those expectations and more in 2018.

Her 52.75 400m hurdles performance at SEC outdoors was an astonishing feat that drastically accelerated McLaughlin’s path to the world record. The time lowered her PR by a massive 0.85 seconds, and put the teen within half a second of the fastest time in history. As McLaughlin transitions into her first year as a pro in 2019, the 19-year-old will face steep expectations once more, this time to contend for a gold medal at next year’s World Championships and beyond. 

1. Keturah Orji (Georgia)

The greatest triple jumper in NCAA history -- and arguably the greatest collegiate field athlete ever -- ended her storied career in style at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships by sweeping the triple- and the long-jump titles for the first time, becoming just the third woman to ever accomplish the feat at the outdoor championships.

FINALLY a wind-legal finale for Orji, one that measured 47-11.75 to set #SECTF meet record & collegiate record. @USTFCCCA @thebowerman pic.twitter.com/lp2YF7n5OH

— Georgia Track&Field (@UGATrack) May 13, 2018

Any conversation about Orji’s spectacular 2018 season must also include her full body of work. Orji won seven total triple-jump NCAA titles between indoor and outdoor, and she won all four outdoor crowns. Only four other athletes in NCAA DI outdoor history have swept an event from freshman to senior year like Orji. In a sport that now routinely sees its greatest stars turn pro early, Orji’s four-year run of dominance may not be eclipsed for a long time, if ever.