2026 Track & Field National Championship Day 1 Recap

INDIANA, Pa. (April 24, 2026) … On a day where four USCAA Championship records were broken, the United States Sports University (USSU) men and SUNY-ESF women held the team leads at the 2026 USCAA Track and Field Championships held at George P. Miller Stadium on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Margaret Ryan of SUNY-ESF set a new mark in the women’s 1500 winning in 4:59.87 besting the mark of Madison Paquette of Cleary in 2018 who ran 5:03.09. Jaylen Willams of Beacon (Fla.) won the long jump with a record leap of 5.46m to top the previous mark Raelyn Vadala of Bluefield State in 2023 who had a mark of 5.09m.

On the men’s side, USSU had both new records as Jasper Nero won the shot put with a new mark of 14.32m topping the previous record of Brandon Holiday from SUNY Delhi in 2018 at 13.80m. In the long jump, Roderickas Burnett won the event with a new record of 7.10m to pass the previous mark of Taiga Cantor from Vermont State-Randolph of 6.68m in 2018.

Eli Lemire of NHTI and Georgia Burton of Maine-Fort Kent were double winners on Friday. Burton took top honors in the women’s shot put (11.09m) and hammer throw (36.29m), while Lemire won the men’s 1500 (4:16.30) and 10,000 meters (37:00.07).

USSU leads the men’s team race with 75 points, followed by SUNY-ESF (29) in second and a tie for third between North American University, Albany Pharmacy and Florida National with 21 points each.

On the women’s side, SUNY-ESF leads with 74 points through seven events with Maine-Fort Kent in second (57), followed by Albany Pharmacy (56), Penn State Schuylkill (22) and Carlow (17).

Day two will kick off at 11 a.m. with the women’s 4x100 relay.