Men's Outdoor Track and Field

South Alabama Women, Coastal Carolina Men Lead after Day 1 of Outdoor Track and Field Championships

Results
JONESBORO, Ark. - Day one of the 2019 Sun Belt Outdoor Track and Field Championships came to a close on Friday with the running of the men's and women's 10,000-meters. South Alabama raced out to the women's team lead with 44 points on Friday while Coastal Carolina leads the men's team standings after picking up 21 points.

Louisiana is second in the women's team standings with 26.5 points followed by Arkansas State with 18. South Alabama and Louisiana are tied for second on the men's side with 20 points.

The CCU duo of Nadeel and Adriaan Wildschutt closed out the first day in style as they went one-two in the 10,000-meters. Nadeel broke the Sun Belt Championship record with a time of 28:56.41 seconds, narrowly defeating his brother who crossed the line in 28:57.10.

The women's 10,000-meters saw Texas State's Leslie Romero win the title. She outpaced the field by 22 seconds, winning with a time of 36:11.53.

Both Wildschutt and Romero were the men's and women's individual champions at the cross country championship this past fall.

Action continues on day two with the finish of both the heptathlon and the decathlon. The decathlon begins at 9:00 a.m. CT and the heptathlon at 9:30 a.m. CT. Field event finals begin at 12:30 p.m. CT with the women's long jump. The running preliminaries begin at 5:30 p.m. CT.

ESPN+ will go live at 5:30 p.m. CT with Drew Fellios and Declan Murray back to call the action.

USA's Michaela Preachuk picked up the Jaguars' first victory of the day in the women's hammer. She claimed the event for the second consecutive season with a 60.98m (200'1") toss. She was fourth in the event in 2017.

Emilie Berge picked up where she left off in the women's heptathlon as she heads into the second day of hep competition with 3,272 points, leading Louisiana's Juliette Smith by 123 points. Berge owns the Championship record with 5,632 points set last year.

UT Arlington's Rhiley Fritz claimed first-place honors in the women's javelin with a 50.33m (165'1") throw. The mark is the fourth best in league history and a career-best, school record for Fritz. The mark moves Fritz into the top 20 in the West Preliminary.

ULM's Cole McKnight won his second consecutive men's javelin title with a 61.69m (202'5'). McKnight's teammate, Mason Nichols took third to give the Warhawks 16 points in the javelin.

Louisiana's Kimberly Rushford was the champion in the women's pole vault, winning the event in a jump-off. Rushford cleared 3.81m (12'6") to earn the title.