NORTHFIELD, Minn. – Highlighted by two first-place finishes, including a meet record in the distance medley relay to finish off the night, the St. Olaf College men's track and field team concluded the first of two full days at the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Indoor Track & Field Championships in third place on Friday at Tostrud Center.

After senior Will Kelly won the 5,000-meter run earlier in the day, St. Olaf's DMR of junior Jackson Marsh, senior Henry Fisher, senior Gabe Estrada, and sophomore Ignatius Fitzgerald broke the seven-year-old championship record by less than a second in the final event of the night. All together, the Oles compiled five All-MIAC and five Honorable Mention All-MIAC performances on the day.

Through 11 events, St. Olaf was third in the team standings with 69 points, trailing Bethel University (97) and Saint John's University (77) in the 11-team field.

In the 5,000-meter run, Kelly pulled away from Augsburg University's Mohammed Bati over the final lap to claim his second individual conference title with a winning time of 14:28.40. The senior's time was less than two seconds shy of the championship record set by Nick Manciu of the University of St. Thomas in 1983. Kelly and Bati were neck-and-neck for the first 24 laps before Kelly split 31.72 – his fastest of the race – and Bati split 39.43 over the final lap.

Marsh, Fisher, Estrada, and Fitzgerald's time of 10:14.89 in the DMR narrowly eclipsed the prior meet record of 10:15.58 set by Carleton College in 2017 and moved the quartet into seventh place on St. Olaf's all-time list in the event. The quartet finished nearly three seconds ahead of second-place Macalester College.

Sophomore Cullen Moore earned his first individual All-MIAC accolade with a runner-up performance in the 800-meter run, clocking in at 1:55.78 to finish a little over half a second behind Tommy Allen of Saint John's and two one-hundredths of a second ahead of Tucker Wallin of the College of St. Scholastica.

In the conclusion of the heptathlon, senior Demetri Lord finished as the runner-up with a school-record total of 4,897 points, surpassing the previous record of 4,864 points set by Stephen Peper in 2022. Starting the day as the leader through four events, Lord extended his lead with a first-place performance in the 60-meter hurdles (8.53) before Concordia-Moorhead's Wade Rhonemus took the lead in the pole vault by clearing 4.40 meters (14' 5 ¼"). Needing to make up ground in the 1,000-meter run, Lord crossed the line a little more than a second ahead of Rhonemus in third in 2:45.98, but it wasn't enough to make up the difference.

St. Olaf's other All-MIAC performance came from junior Eh Ler Moo, who was third in the long jump (6.65m, 21' 10"). Moo logged his top jump of the day on his first attempt and held onto the third spot the rest of the way. First year Max Albertson was just behind Moo in fourth (6.55m, 21' 6") to secure honorable-mention honors.

Junior Andrew Cogley secured Honorable Mention All-MIAC honors in the heptathlon by placing sixth with 4,478 points, which was good for sixth on St. Olaf's all-time list. Cogley closed out the competition by winning the 1,000-meter run in a personal-best time of 2:41.79.

Junior Dylan Arnold, senior Anders Cote, and sophomore Kevin Turlington all turned in Honorable Mention All-MIAC results as well. Arnold was fourth in the pole vault (4.45m, 14' 7 ¼"), Cote was fifth in the 5,000-meter run (15:04.04), and Turlington was sixth in the one-mile run (4:17.89).

The final day of the MIAC Indoor Championships begins with field events at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 24. Events on the track start at 1 p.m.