ROCHESTER, NY – Johns Hopkins couldn't have scripted a much better opening day at the 2025 NCAA Division III Men's Indoor Track Championships as the Blue Jays won the national championship in the Distance Medley Relay and produced the national runner-up in the 5,000-meter run to grab 18 points in the team standings.
 
With 18 points, Johns Hopkins sits two points behind first-day leader Wisconsin-LaCrosse, which totaled 20 points on Friday.  The Blue Jays are tied with Wisconsin-Oshkosh for second place with Wilmington (OH) (15) and Wisconsin-Whitewater (11) rounding out the top five in the team standings.
 
DMR Wins National Title
Entering the championship with the fourth-best time in the nation this season and having been the national runner-up in this event two years ago, the Blue Jays were certainly on the radar entering Friday.  Still, it took everything the Hopkins foursome had to grab the first relay national championship in program history.
 
Sitting third for a portion of the initial 1,200-meter leg, Aidan Tomov made a push down the stretch and handed off in 3:01.05 to Alex Colletti, who ran a blistering 400 to give the Blue Jays a nearly two-second advantage through 1,600-meters of the 4,000-meter event.  MIT's Jared Steins then grabbed the lead for MIT over the next 800-meters, although Johns Hopkins Fisayo Omonije was just a hair behind in second when he passed the baton to miler Lucas Rackers, whose job over the final 1,600 was clear.
 
Rackers sat on the shoulder of MIT's Tim Neumann before making his move on the back half of the mile to grab a slight lead.  Working from the front and with Neumann on his heels, Rackers, who had the top three times in the mile this season for the Blue Jays, was able to hold his position in the lead and held off the field in the final 20 meters to cross in 9:52.43. 
 
The time is the second-best in program history and four seconds better than JHU's qualifying time entering the championship.  The top four teams would all break 9:56 with runner-up MIT finishing just under two seconds behind.  Lynchburg was actually the second team to cross the line in 9:52.92, but the Hornets were disqualified after committing an infraction during the race.
 
Leblond Races to Silver in 5K
Junior Emmanuel Leblond had been here before; twice actually.  After placing 11^th and 17^th in 5K in his first two trips to the NCAA Indoor Track Championships, Leblond put together one of the great races of his career to place second and grab silver.
 
Leblond was never out of the top four in the race and was within a second of eventual national champion Grant Matthai of Wisconsin-LaCrosse through 4,000-meters.  When Matthai made his move to grab a six-second lead with 400-meters remaining, Leblond took control of the pack behind him.  Down more than a second to Christian Patzka at 4,600, Leblond went sub-33-seconds in each of the final 200-meters splits (32:33 & 32:90) to grab his runner-up finish with a time of 14:08.64.
 
Leblond's time is the second-best in program history and his runner-up finish is the best for a member of the Blue Jay men's track team the NCAA Indoor Championships since Andrew Bartnett placed second in the pole vault in 2016.
 
In addition to the DMR and Leblond, Johns Hopkins freshman Brady Ott placed 17th in the mile in 4:17.47 to round out Hopkins' entries on the first day of the championships.
 
Leblond (3,000) and Oluwademilade Adeniran (triple jump) will compete on Saturday on the second and final day of the championships.