The Incarnate Word Men's Track & Field Team sits in second place after Day 1 of the Southland Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships. The Cardinals totaled 39.5 points through 6-of-17 events.

The majority of the day's finals were field events, with the Cardinals finishing in the top-3 of Men's Long Jump, Men's Pole Vault, and Men's Weight Throw, highlighted by a podium-topping performance from Alex Brown in Men's Weight Throw.

Brown was the only competitor to clear 19.04m, taking first place in the event and give the Cardinals 10 team points.

Tajh Jones took third in the Men's Long Jump with a 7.49m jump, which jumped him to 71st in Division I this season and Gabriel Grebet finished right behind Jones with a best jump of 7.31m.

Jonah Ulbricht placed second in Men's Pole Vault, clearing 4.95m on his first try, and Mika Funck tied for fourth, successfully crossing 4.75m. The Cardinals placed two additional athletes in the top-10, with Austin Davisson finishing seventh, giving the Cardinals 2 additional team points.

The lone individual track final was the Men's 5000m run, which saw Eric Pineda finish 8th in 14:44.84. The Cardinals placed sixth in the 4000m distance medley relay with a time of 10:04.88.

The rest of the events completed on the day were prelims for upcoming finals, as well as four of the seven Men's Heptathlon events. Through those four events, Gabriel Grebet sits in first place with 3,118 points, while Incarnate Word also held spots three, four, and five. Mika Funck has 2,870 points to hold third place, Tommaso Franze is in fourth place with 2,825 points, and Nicolai Nelson is fifth with 2,778 points.

Grebet got off to, quite literally, a fast start, posting the only sub-7.00-second time, 6.94. to win the 60m leg. Funck finished the race in 7.22 second to place third, Franze placed fourth with a time of 7.25 seconds, and Nelson ran it in 7.28 seconds to finish fifth.

The next event was the Men's Heptathlon Long Jump and Grebet made it two-for-two, taking first place again with a jump of 7.04m. Franze, with a top jump of 6.96m, finished second in the event, and Nelson finished fourth in the event with a jump of 6.76m.

Funck and Nelson finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Men's Heptathlon Shot Put, maintaining their top-five positioning in the Heptathlon, while Grebet and Franze finished, eighth and ninth, respectively, in the event.

The last Heptathlon event of the day was the High Jump, which saw Grebet get back to his winning ways. The junior was the only athlete to clear 1.99m to win the event and push his lead in the Heptathlon from 14 after the third event to 94 points. Funck finished third and moved up into third overall. Franze finished sixth in the high jump and Nelson finished eighth to round out the day's events.

The Cardinals will take to the track to wrap up the 2026 Southland Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships tomorrow, February 26th with the first event starting at 9:40 a.m.