Napersville, IL––The Williams College men's track and field team opened the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships with a bang. Co-captain Tobias Muellers '18 competed in the first four events of the heptathlon, while the relay squad of Peter Kirgis '20, Eliot Fong '19, Tristan Colaizzi '20, and co-captain David Folsom '17 ran a gutsy race in the distance medley relay.
Muellers, who the previous evening had won the NCAA Elite 90 award as the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average competing at the NCAA Championships, kicked things off in the heptathlon with the 60-meter dash.
Muellers ran a quick time of 7.28 (785 points) for 3rd in the standings, just .02 out of first, in a personal best. Returning just 45 minutes later to compete in the long jump, Muellers performed even better relative to the field, jumping 6.64m (729 points), this time 2nd in the standings.
Next, Muellers returned for the shot put. Although generally his weakest event overall, Muellers threw ably, putting the shot for a mark of 11.13m (554 points, this time good for 11th in the standings. Finally, in the last heptathlon event of the day, Muellers leapt to 1.69m (536 points) in the high jump for 15th in the standings.
At the end of the day, Muellers was 12th in the standings with 2604 points, with the pole vault, 60-meter hurdles, and 1000 meter run left to compete tomorrow. Muellers' strongest event is likely the pole vault, so he is well-placed to move up into an All-American spot tomorrow.
Concluding the day was the distance medley relay. After running an incredible race to qualify for NCAAs just last week, the relay squad of Kirgis, Fong, Colaizzi, and Folsom had set All-American honors (top 8) as their goal. Kirgis ran a strong opening 1200-meter leg of 3:06, navigating the crowded field effectively to hand off to Fong in 7th place. Fong kept the Ephs in All-American contention, running a 50.5 400 meter split to hand off to Colaizzi in 8th place. Colaizzi moved up very well over his 800-meter leg, running a 1:54 split to hand off to Folsom in 5th place. Knowing he had to run with the pack in order to garner All-American honors, Folsom went for broke, going out faster than he was used to with a 59 opening 400 and a 2:03 opening 800. Folsom hung with his pack until the final lap, when he kicked away from the chase pack to finish in 5th overall, an All-American honors. All four relay members are All-Americans for the first time.
The Ephs were in 17th place at the end of Day One of competition. Muellers, co-captain Peter Hale '17, and Magnus Herweyer '20 will conclude the meet tomorrow with the last three events of the heptathlon, the 3000 meter run, and the shot put, respectively.
