SOUTH HADLEY, Mass.— Graduate student Anthony Rodriguez (Prairie View, Ill.), first-year Nick Yacoub (Sharon, Mass.) and junior Julian Ivarra (Plano, Texas) were the top three finishers in the men's 10,000 meters championship to highlight Babson College's performance on day one of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) track & field championships Friday afternoon and evening at Mount Holyoke College.

The Beavers are in third place in the team scoring heading into Saturday's events with 30 points. WPI has the lead with 52 points and MIT is in second with 39. Coast Guard (27), Springfield (24) and Wheaton (22) round out the team scoring. Five events were completed while two events ran preliminaries and the decathlon completed five of the 10 events.

Rodriguez captured his third straight 10,000-meter title and fourth overall ('21, '23, '24, '25), finishing in a time of 32:25.04. Yacoub was right on his heals most of the race and finished runner-up in his NEWMAC debut, crossing the line in 32:25.64, and Ivarra recorded his second straight third-place finish and his third consecutive top-five showing with a time of 32:28.50. Sophomore Jonathan Hanscom (Hadley, Mass.) moved up from an 11th place last year to seventh place this year in a time of 33:17.85, nearly a minute faster than a year ago.

First-year Matthew Vilela (Framingham, Mass.) sits in fourth place out of five competitors after the first five events in the decathlon. Vilela's top performances came with first-place showings in the shot put with a mark of 35-feet, 4.75-inches and the high jump with a leap of 5-feet, 8.75-inches.

Sophomore Chris McDonough (North Andover, Mass.) qualified for the finals in the 100-meter dash for the second straight year. He finished third with a time of 10.75 seconds and will defend his title on Saturday.

Babson had two athletes qualify for Saturday's final in the 110-meter hurdles. First-year Aithan Bezanson (Danvers, Mass.) qualified fifth with a season-best time of 15.25 seconds and classmate Patrick Allardi (Andover, Mass.) qualified 10th with a time of 15.55 seconds. Sophomore Gabe Rosenberg (Silver Spring, Md.) just missed out on making the finals, finishing 11th in a season-best time of 16.08.

Bezanson also finished in sixth place in the long jump with a leap of 21-feet, 0.5 inches, and eighth place in the javelin final with a throw of 168-feet, 8-inches. Senior Will Dean (Belmont, Mass.) was ninth in the long jump with a mark of 19-feet, 5.25-inches.

The Beavers had two top-10 finishers in the hammer throw. Junior Joseph Addotta (Ridgefield, Conn.) finished ninth with a career-best mark of 135-feet, 2-inches, more than 14 feet better than his previous best, and first-year Brett White (Barrington, R.I.) took 10th place with a mark of 134-feet, 2-inches. Sophomore Coleman Hayes (New York, N.Y.) finished 14th with a career-best mark of 117-07, and first-year Nick Elward (Ipswich, Mass.) was 17th with a mark of 100-feet, 9-inches.

Day two of the championships begins on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.