The men started day one at Hayward Field of the 100th NCAA Track and Field Championship
1500
The first distance event of the day were two heats of the 1500 where 24 athletes attempt to make to the coveted 12 spots for Friday's final. Two surprises in the 1500 came in DNQs for favorites Anass Essayi of South Carolina and Eliud Kipsang of Alabama. Washington had a big day as three athletes qualified to the Friday's final: Nathan Green, Joe Waskom and Luke Houser.
3000 Steeplechase
BYU's Kenneth Rooks and Montana State's Duncan Hamilton won their respective heats and ran close to the World Championship standard of 8:22. Six of the 12 qualifiers ran at last year's final and big shout out to freshman Estanis Ruiz of Loyola Marymount as he made his first final.
800 Meters
The top seeds made it through to Friday's finals - Brandon Miller of Texas Tech, Moad Zahafi of Texas Teach and Navasky Anderson of Mississippi. Moad Zahafi is the world leader in the 800 and is the favorite for Friday, but the field is deep with Jason Gomez of Iowas State impressively winning his heat.
10,000 Meters
In the 10,000 meter final Athanas Kioko of Campbell took a massive lead and held it for most of the race. The impressive part was that Kioko didn't get swallowed up by the pack. He held on and finished fifth. Dylan Jacobs of Notre Dame ultimately came out victorious with a time of 28:12. Jacobs also fell 3000 meters into the race, but got up and recovered for the victory. The pre-race favorite Abdihamid Nur of Northern Arizona finished third and Alex Maier of Oklahoma State finished second. Cole Sprout of Stanford, Charles Hicks of Stanford and Aaron Bienenfeld of Oregon represented the West Coast on the podium (it should be noted that Hicks ran with a bloody nose for half the race).
Check out the photo gallery from Day 1 of the NCAA Championship
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