Allie Ostrander, the Boise State phenom who as a freshman finished second at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, did something most distance runners who compete the flat distances would never consider — she took a stab at the steeplechase.

In her debut effort at the race, Ostrander ran quite well, winning at the Stanford Invitational on Friday in a time of 9:55.61.

But it was less her time and more the manner in which she contested the race that was most impressive. Ostrander looked incredibly natural over the barriers, which made sense when she revealed after the race that she competed in the 300 meter hurdles in high school.

The water jump, however? That was a different story.

“I only practiced the water jump once and it was atrocious,” Ostrander said. “I hoped it would go better during the race. If not, I’d be going for a little swim.”

“I spent a lot of time in the pool in the last year anyways, so I’m very fluent in that,” Ostrander added facetiously, referencing the injuries that have forced her to cross train for much of the past year.

Ostrander positioned herself in the early portions of the race on the tails of the leaders, just biding her time until the right moment to strike. That moment turned out to be with two laps to go.

“I was listening to the people around me,” Ostrander said. “They were breathing more heavily than me, which told me I could probably go for it at that point.”

From there Ostrander gapped the field a bit and was able to hold off a late charge from Alexina Wilson of Oiselle to claim the win.

The performance stirred up discussion in the track world about Ostrander’s future in the event. If track and field was debated like D.C. politics, the CNN chyron would probably read, “Allie Ostrander: America’s next great steeplechaser?”

But among the Citius staff, the question was this: Was the performance significant enough to warrant being hyped up?

Nicole Bush, 2013 U.S. outdoor steeplechase champion and Citius Mag writer:

Not quite. From interviews with Ostrander, it sounds like she ran it for fun and to take the pressure off her first race back from injury, which feels like the opposite intent of something which to hype. A 9:55 debut is notable, but it’s what you should expect from someone with Ostrander’s talent.

She deserves a moment to decide if she’s even interested in the event before everyone starts throwing out Emma Coburn and Evan Jager type expectation hype.

American records and Olympic medals take more than just talent and a lot has to happen between a 9:55 debut and being the fastest American in the event or an Olympic medalist. She’s certainly tough and seems to like gritty races, which bodes well if she wants to be a steeplechaser.

The best steeplechasers in the U.S. have, or are capable of, running an ‘A’ standard in either the 1,500 or the 5,000 — which Ostrander has done and that bodes well, too. But let’s give her a damn second to decide what she wants. If she wants to race it again and finds she has some passion for it, then we’ve got hype on our hands.

Kevin Liao, Citius Mag writer:

In my view, the answer is yes.

And not because some random sophomore in college ran 9:55 in the steeple. It’s significant because it was Allie Ostrander, the super talent who as a freshman ran 15:21 for 5K and was nearly NCAA cross country champion.

We saw it with Evan Jager and Emma Coburn this past summer in Rio — when America’s blue-chippers opt to take their talents to the steeplechase, the United States can compete for medals at global championships.

It’s still up in the air whether Ostrander even chooses to pursue the event. She said after the race that she wouldn’t contest another steeple until her conference or regional meets.

But if she does go down the path of focusing on the steeple, Ostrander has the potential to be among America’s — and even the world’s — best in the event.