Siofra Cleirigh Buttner broke the Irish indoor 800m record at the NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas on Saturday (March 10).

Villanova athlete Cleirigh Buttner clocked a personal best 2:02.46 to finish second in the indoor 800m final which also betters her own indoor school record.

The Dundrum South Dublin athlete improves on the previous Irish record of 2:02.54 by 0.08 that was set by Ciara Everard in 2013.

Going into the final lap, Cleirigh Buttner was seventh of eight athletes and a superb finish saw the 22-year-old move up the field before outkicking Texas A&M’s Sammy Watson down the home straight to take silver.

Cleirigh Buttner is the first Villanova athlete in 30 years to finish as high as second in the 800m at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

The 22-year-old, who competed for Ireland at the World Championships in London last year, now holds Villanova’s top six best indoor records over the distance, which have all of been ran in the last 25 months.

Oregon’s Sabrina Southerland took the NCAA title in a time of 2:01.55.

Elsewhere Scottish athlete Josh Kerr successfully retained his mile crown clocking 3:57.02 in the final. More about Kerr’s win can be found here.