READING, Pa.— A Championship-record gold-medal performance from the Distance Medley Relay highlighted what turned into a mixed day for Eastern University Men's Track at the opening day of the 2026 MAC Indoor Championships. The Eastern men took medals in three events and qualified four individuals into Saturday finals.
The day, for Eastern, had a lot of good.
Keyon Jones claimed the first Eastern medal of the day with a third-place finish in the high jump. He cleared 1.94 meters on his second jump to distance himself from all but two other competitors. Though he finished in a tie for second on height, his miss to open at 6'4.5" put him in third.
Moments later, the track opened for the 4,000 Meter Distance Relay. With 12 schools entering teams, the track was full of competitors with the top five building separation over the opening leg.
Robert Walton ran a strong 1200 meters in a lot of traffic to get the baton to
Christian Scales within a few tics of the lead.
Scales gained ground early and passed two opponents to hand the baton to Joshua Knox-Jordan in second place on the shoulder of a runner from King's. Though when Knox-Jordan handed off to
Ryle Mellinger the Eagles were still in second, the rookie 800 runner gave Mellinger a good two-second lead over King's and their veteran standout Owen Foytack. Foytack has run 4:07.41 in the mile this year, and by the end of the seventh lap, he had closed the gap completely. Mellinger, who is enjoying a tremendous indoor season, found another gear and pulled away.
Coming into the meet, the Eagles thought they would have a good shot to medal and break the program record of 10:24.57 set in 2019. Those expectations were more than met as they became the first MAC team to go sub-10:15 in a Championship. Messiah set the Championship mark with a 10:16.45 last year.
Elijah McCullough and
Jeric Lewis each made the finals in the Long Jump. McCullough sailed 6.93 meters on his final jump to pass two competitors and grab a bronze medal. Lewis, whose top event is the Triple Jump was in a podium spot until the final jump of the day went one centimeter beyond his best mark.
The Eagles put two athletes into the finals in the 60 Meter Hurdles. Iam Hopkins and
Fritz Clement will be seeded second and third and were separated by 3/1000ths of a second.
Jahari Brown and James Ugorgi both reached the finals in the 60 Meter Hurdles, but
Jason Bateman was ran the best time not to qualify.
In a final disappointment of the day, the Eagles 4 x 200 relay was on program record pace and looked like a lock to medal when with 50 meters to go, a competitor stumbled coming off the turn and knocked the baton out of Ugorgi's hand.
Donovan Skinner is sitting in ninth with three events left in heptathlon.
In addition to those who earned spots in finals from today, Eastern will have strong entries in Jumps, Sprints, and middle distance events. The Eagles are currently fourth in the Championship with 22 points.
