BIRMINGHAM, ALA. – Cortland junior
Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) finished in 18th place in the mile run during the opening day of the 2026 NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships. The event is being held at the Birmingham Crossplex.
Innocent finished 10th in the first of two heats in the opening round with a time of 5:00.83. The top four finishers from each heat, plus the next fastest two times, advanced to Saturday's finals. Innocent's time was faster than two of the runners in the second 10-runner heat.
Innocent opened up in seventh place after the first lap and moved to fifth after three laps. She was in sixth place five laps into the race before dropping off to ninth after six laps and 10th after seven. Elena Stanciu of UC Santa Cruz won the heat in 4:51.17, with the top five runners crossing the line within seven tenths of a second of each other. Mackenzie Setton of Johns Hopkins won the second heat in 4:49.60.
Innocent was making her first NCAA track and field appearance, and was Cortland's lone women's competitor at the meet. She has been an NCAA Division III cross country qualifier and the SUNYAC women's cross country champion each of the last two years.
Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:
Two First Team All-Americans in the same event is something to behold! That's a pretty rare occurrence, and one we're quite proud of. Normally in the field events we like to have a rule that if you throw (or jump) the distance that got you into the meet, you will be on the podium. Today, that wasn't the case – most of the field was performing under their seed. NCAA Championships can be like that – some years people are launching PRs left and right, and some years it is a bit tighter. A huge amount of credit to Isaiah for staying mentally focused in the competition and battling to move up to 5th in the finals (and to earn his 5th career All-American honor), and for Evan for the massive jump on his seed (from 18th to finishing 7th) with the second-best throw of his career!
Melissa had a great effort in the mile today – the field was going to be fast (it took 4:51 to make the finals); she made the right moves to put herself into contention with 400 to go. Her heat was so tight that all 10 competitors were with a second at the 1200 mark from a fairly fast pace, which is pretty unusual! She clearly fought through to the finish, but sometimes you can do the right things and still come up a little short. That's frustrating for her, but not for the coaches – we're quite proud with what she did over the season to get here as well as how she handled herself today through all the aspects of the meet.
Tomorrow we get the return of Isaiah in the shot put, along with
Manuel Sepulveda on the runway for Triple Jump.
