MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's track and field team had four first-place finishes at the season-opening M City Classic on Friday and Saturday at the University of Minnesota Fieldhouse.
Senior
Lance Nemecek, sophomore
Jackson Bullock, and senior
Kevin Turlington won individual events on the track for St. Olaf, which also had a first-place performance in the 4x400-meter relay. The Oles put recorded five performances that ranked on their all-time top-10 performers' list at the first indoor meet of the season.
Nemecek, senior
Cullen Moore, first year
Paxon Myers, and junior
Christian Fells all ran top-12 times in NCAA Division III this season in the 800-meter run to post the four fastest times of the day. Nemecek won the event in 1:54.02, followed closely by Moore in 1:54.16, which rank second and third in the country and third and fourth, respectively, on the Oles' all-time list. Myers edged Fells at the line by one one-hundredth of a second in 1:55.73, as the pair posted the No. 10 and No. 11 times nationally.
Nemecek, Moore, and Myers were joined by sophomore
Austin McInturff on the winning 4x400-meter relay, which compiled a time of 3:21.77 to rank second on St. Olaf's all-time list. That time is just seven one-hundredths of a second off the program record set in 2016 and ranks fifth in the country.
St. Olaf logged the top-three times of the meet in the one-mile run, led by Bullock's first-place time of 4:23.01. Senior
Eli Doran (4:23.04) and junior
Alex Bjork (4:23.37) were within half a second of Bullock, with all three Oles posting top-20 times in NCAA Division III to date.
Senior
Kevin Turlington added a win in the 5,000-meter run with the fifth-fastest time in NCAA Division III (14:35.39). Fellow senior
Gael Manzur Strandlund was third in 15:19.86 as well.
Sophomore
Cristian Escobar Pearson bettered his No. 2 time on St. Olaf's all-time list in the 60-meter dash in both the prelims (7.07) and finals (7.05) to finish eighth in the event. Junior
Jesse Olson recorded the No. 8 score on the Oles' list in the heptathlon (4,153) by registering four personal-bests in the seven-event, two-day competition to take fourth. Olson's highest finish came in the high jump, where he placed third after clearing 182 meters (5' 11 ½").
St. Olaf will be back in 2026 at the Ole Opener at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17 at Tostrud Center.