EMPORIA, Kan. – Chayton Bynes broke his own school record, topped his previous outdoor personal best on two different occasions and earned his third career First Team All-American accolade in the triple jump (and first outdoors) by placing fifth at the 2026 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Emporia, Kansas on Saturday. 

Bynes leapt 15.80 meters (51 feet, 10 inches) on his second of six jumps, then immediately followed with 15.78 meters (51 feet, 9.75 inches) on his third. Both of those marks exceeded Bynes's previous school-record best of 15.73m (51-7.25), set earlier this season on CSC's home track at the Con Marshall Early Bird in March.

The redshirt junior now has four top 10 and three top five finishes at nationals in his career between the indoor and outdoor triple jump. Bynes placed fifth indoors and 10^th outdoors as a redshirt sophomore in 2024-25, and now has backed up his third-place finish from this year's indoor meet with a fifth-place outdoor finish. 

Yves Bilong of Harding took home the national title at 16.16 meters (53-0.25), a year after finishing sixth. Donte Dockery of Wilmington jumped 16.00 meters even (52-6) to finish second while Washburn's Justin Forde came third at 15.94 meters (52-3.75). 

Dockery and Forde finished in reverse order to last year's championships, when Forde was second and Dockery third. Harding also had the fourth-place finisher in freshman Artem Konovalenko (15.81m/51-10.5), who edged out Bynes by half an inch.

Determined to avoid a repeat of last year's outdoor meet, when the Chadron native was 10^th after three jumps and missed the top-nine cutoff for the finals and three additional jumps by only two inches, Bynes was safely in the upper echelon of the field this time around. 

Bynes recorded marks on each of his first five jumps, landing 15.23m (49-11.75), 15.80m (51-10), 15.78m (51-9.75), 15.37m (50-5.25) and 15.25m (50-0.5) in order. 

All five of those leaps would have been good enough to make the final as jumpers needed over 50 feet to get in the final nine on Saturday, with seven jumpers clearing 51 feet. The unlucky 10^th-place finisher this year was another RMAC jumper, UCCS's KJ McInnis, whose mark of 15.14m (49-8.25) was one inch shy of making the finals and six inches back of ninth place when the competition concluded.

Bynes's second jump of 15.80 put him in first place at the time, although Bilong vaulted into the lead shortly after in the second round. In the competition, Bynes was second after two jumps, third after three jumps, fourth after four jumps and fifth after five jumps.

Because of the jumping order, Bynes was assured of no worse than fifth place by the time he took his sixth and final turn, so the redshirt junior could afford to go with an all-or-nothing attempt. That ended up being Bynes's only scratch of the day.

This year marks the second consecutive year that Bynes has reset his own outdoor triple jump school record at nationals. Bynes was one of five jumpers in the competition to set a new personal best on Saturday, and was the second-highest placing jumper to do so behind Konovalenko, who is still a freshman.

By finishing in the top eight, Bynes also breaks a five-year drought since Chadron State track and field had its last outdoor First Team All-American, which was Naishaun Jerigan in the long jump in 2021. Since then, the Eagles had recorded four Second Team All-American placings outdoors – Shane Collins in the hammer in 2022 and the trio of Nicquaine Henry, Trace Hanchett and Bynes last year.

Grand Valley State unseated four-time reigning champ Pittsburg State as the men's team national champions, earning 66 points to Pitt State's 61. West Texas A&M won the women's title while the Pitt State women were also second, by less than a point – 64 to 63.2. Colorado School of Mines represented the RMAC by placing third in the women's team competition, earning 40 points. 

Chadron State's 2025-26 track and field season has now concluded.