| Men's Results | Women's Results | 
 
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Saint Mary's University of Minnesota track and field coach Niels Anderson entered the two-day Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Indoor Championships with high expectations.
 
An indoor season filled with six new school records and 19 all-time top 5 program performances will do that to a coach.
 
And the Cardinals lived up to their pre-championships hype during Friday's opening day of the two-day conference championships at St. Thomas.
 
Saint Mary's boasted two top-3 finishes and six top-8 finishes —including Mari Missurelli's fourth place finish in the pole vault. 
 
Missurelli was one of the Cardinals top performers Friday evening with her season-best performance in the pole vault. Missurelli entered the event with the fourth-best vault in the MIAC and was hoping to earn back-to-back All-MIAC honors after being named All-Conference in 2016. While she just missed finishing the top-3, Missurelli cleared 3.23 meters in the finals, clinching fourth place and earning five points towards Saint Mary's overall score.
 
The men put together four top-8 performances, including third place finishes by Brandon Krogman and Jovan Newsum, Krogman finished third in the 800 meter run with a time of 1:55.86, while Newsum put together one of the most thrilling races of the day. After falling back to sixth place in the 5000 meter run with two laps to go, the senior passed three runners in the final lap to finish in third place with a time of 15:28.49.
 
Austin O'Hare was another distance runner who found success on the track for the Cardinals. The junior distance specialist finished in eighth place in the mile with a time of 4:29.49.
 
Kyle Lichttenegger and Becca Dup found success in the sprint events, as both qualified for finals in the 60 meter dash. Lichttenegger finished in seventh place with a time of 7.08 in the finals, while Dup finished in eight with a time of 8.09.
 
Several other Cardinals competed on the first day of the MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championships. Female sprinters Mackenzie Ellefson, Portia Mensah, and Maura Michener were impressive in the 60 meter dash prelims, while Ross Kinderman and Kynzie Smedsrud put together strong performances in the 60 meter hurdles.
 
Natalie King finished in the top-half of the women's weight throw competition with her throw of 13.01 meters, while Kinderman and Desmond Steward both competed in the men's long jump.
 
At the end of the day, Saint Mary's women's team sat in 11^th place with six points while the men's team was in 10^th with 15 points. The Cardinals will return to competition on Saturday for the second and final day of the MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championship. The events are scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m. with the men's triple jump and women's high jump competitions.
 
More information on the 2017 MIAC Indoor Track and Field Competition can be found on the conference's official championship page.