The Middlebury women's and men's distance medley relay teams earned All-American honors as well as Adrian Walsh during the 5,000-meter run on the first day of the 2016 NCAA Division III Indoor Championships. The two-day event is taking place at the Charles Benson Bear '39 Rec and Athletic Center in Grinnell, Iowa on the campus of Grinnell College.
The women's DMR ran to a seventh-straight All-American accolade via a fourth-place effort during the final event of the evening. The team of Nicole Schachman, Kate McCluskey, Lauren Bougioukas and Abigail Nadler raced to the line in a time of 11:50.96. In addition to Friday's result, a women's DMR team representing Middlebury won the national title in both 2011 and 2012. In Friday's event, St. Thomas (Minn.) won the national championship in the event with a time of 11:47.04, as the top-eight places were separated 6.23 seconds.
One event prior, the men's DMR edged NESCAC foe Connecticut College at the finish line, winding up eighth for the second All-American finish with the other occurring in 2012. The quartet of Kevin Serrao, Tyler Farrell, Lucas Carpinello and Sam Cartwright crossed the line with a time of 10:07.24. In the final few meters of the race, Cartwright dove over the line to edge the Camel runner by .01 seconds for the top-eight finish. Washington-St. Louis (Mo.) claimed the national championship in the event with a time of 10:00.25, as the top-eight places stopped the clock just 6.99 seconds apart.
Walsh picked up an All-American laurel with a seventh-place finish in the 5,000-meter run in 17:10.78, shaving nearly nine seconds off her ninth-place time of 17:19.71 from last year's indoor national meet.
In preliminary action on Friday, the Panthers were represented in both the women's and men's 4x400-meter relay races. For the women, the team of Jackie Kearney, Lucy Lang, Paige Fernandez and Alexandra Morris posted the eighth-quickest time of 3:53.18 to advance to Saturday's final at 6:20 p.m.
As an individual, Morris competed in the 400-meter dash preliminaries, recording the sixth-best time of 56.98. She will run for a national title on Saturday at 3:45 p.m.
In men's preliminary relay action, Middlebury's Jimmy Martinez, James Mulliken, Brandon Cushman and Alex Nichols ran to a time of 3:19.905 in the evening's third heat of the 4x400. However, the team from Wheaton (Ill.) tallied a time of 3:19.904 in the first heat to edge the Panthers by one one-thousandth of a second and move to Saturday's final.
The final day of competition is scheduled to begin Saturday at 11:00 a.m.
