The 2025 NCAA Outdoor Championships began inside Eugene’s Hayward Field on Wednesday. The first day of action included the men’s field event finals, the men’s 10,000-meter final, the men’s short- and medium-distance semifinals, and the first five events of the men’s decathlon.
Senior Kostas Zaltos led a Minnesota 1-2 in the hammer throw, finishing first with a personal-best throw of 78.08 meters. His sophomore teammate and Greek countryman Angelos Mantzouras came second with a throw of 76.96 meters, giving the Golden Gophers’ men’s team an early lead with 18 team points. Minnesota’s men finished the day on top with 23 team points.
“I finally won after (four times) being here, so I’m very happy about that, very excited,” Zaltos said afterwards. “I’m very happy for my teammate too. He had a great series, he was very consistent, and he got second. I’m excited to see (how) the rest of the week (goes) for our Gophers.”
After finishing fourth as a redshirt freshman, third as a sophomore and second as a junior, Wisconsin redshirt senior Jason Swarens finally broke through, winning the shot put with a 21.23-meter throw. University of North Carolina’s Thomas Kitchell finished in second place with a 20.74-meter personal-best.
Ole Miss junior Tarik Robinson-O’Hagan, who’d already finished third in the hammer throw (76.78 meters), nabbed another third place in shot put with a best throw of 20.41 meters, putting the Rebels men into fourth place with 12 total team points.
Ducks freshman Kobe Lawrence finished just outside the podium, earning fourth place after a personal-best throw of 20.32 meters. Lawrence’s five earned points put the Ducks’ men in T-19th place after the first day of competition.
Aleksandr Solovev, the indoor first-team All-American pole vaulter from Texas A&M University, won the pole vault at 5.78 meters, an outdoor personal best and the highest mark achieved by any collegiate pole vaulter this season.
Elsewhere on the field, University of Miami All-American Devoux Deysel won the javelin with an 81.75-meter throw, and University of Florida two-time indoor and outdoor All-American Malcolm Clemens won the long jump with a wind-aided (+2.2) season-best of 8.04 meters.
No Ducks participated in track finals on Wednesday, but all four semifinal participants advanced to their respective Friday finals.
Oregon sophomore Simeon Birnbaum placed second behind Wisconsin’s Adam Spencer in the second semifinal heat of the men’s 1500-meter. Birnbaum’s time of 3:41.77 was good enough for second-best overall behind Spencer’s 3:41.67, which means the two will likely be neck-and-neck again in Friday’s final.
“I want to win,” Birnbaum said postrace regarding the upcoming final. When asked how he’d go about beating Spencer and others, Birnbaum simply smiled and said, “We’ll see.”
Fellow Ducks sophomore Benjamin Balazs qualified for Friday’s 3000-meter steeplechase final. He finished seventh in the second, faster semifinal heat (outside the heat’s top five automatic qualifiers) but his personal-best time of 8:29.87 (nearly a second faster than the first heat’s winning time of 8:30.65) earned him the second of two remaining spots in the final.
According to Balazs, Oregon head coach Jerry Schumacher is an advocate of pacing oneself across a season, which has his Ducks feeling good entering nationals. “You always save a little bit so that when you get to this championship season, you can beat everybody you need to beat,” Balazs said.
The first leg of the men’s 800-meter semifinal saw the top five finishers achieve personal bests, including Ducks freshman Koitatoi Kidali and senior Matthew Erickson, who finished second (1:45.31) and fourth (1:45.89) respectively.
Kidali’s second-place finish automatically qualified him for Friday’s final. However, he fell shortly after crossing the line and briefly stayed down, meaning an injury could jeopardize his postseason.
Erickson, who noted that he prefers “doing the hunting” to “getting hunted”, led the majority of the race before losing ground in the last two corners.
“I hate losing. It’s not how I want to make a final, but I checked the box, and so now it’s onto the next,” Erickson said. Erickson secured the second of three remaining final spots when no runners in the second or third heats were able to beat his time.
The only track final of the day, the men’s 10,000-meter race, saw the University of New Mexico’s Ishmael Kipkurui (29:07.70) and Habtom Samuel (29:08.73) finish first and second respectively, earning the Lobo’s men 18 points and pushing UNM into a second-place tie with Florida (also 18 points).
The first half of the men’s decathlon saw 21 competitors compete in the 100-meter race, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400-meter race. Mississippi State University’s Peyton Bair ended the day on top with 4,479 points, buoyed by first-place finishes in the 100-meter (10.25 seconds +0.5) and 400-meter (46.00 seconds) races.
University of California, Santa Barbara’s Brad Thomas (4,192 points) and Brigham Young University’s Ben Barton (4,190) are currently locked in a tight battle for second place. They’ll have five more events tomorrow (the 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and the 1,500-meter race) to close the gap to Bair.
The 2025 NCAA Outdoor Championships will continue from Thursday through Saturday. In addition to the conclusion of the men’s decathlon, Thursday’s action will include the women’s field event finals, the women’s 10,000-meter race, and semifinals for the women’s short- and medium-distance races.
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