The High Point University men's track & field team is in third place at the 2010 Big South Indoor Championship after day one of competition. With 31 points the Panthers trail Liberty (91) and VMI (33). Senior Jesse Cherry finished second in the 3,000-meter behind Liberty's Sam Chelanga and the men's distance medley relay finished in second behind Liberty.

“Overall it was a very good day,” said head coach Mike Esposito. “Jesse ran really well in the 3k, setting a new personal records and Neal Darmody really put it all together and had a great 3k as well. The second place DMR was really close. We fell behind early but Josh Morgan really got us back in the race and Jevin Monds closed strong with a 4:11.”

Cherry set a personal record with a 8:18.11 finish in the 3k, finishing four seconds behind Chelanaga (8:14.07). Cherry will run the 5k on Sunday. Darmody and Dakota Peachee finished in fourth (8:28.19) and sixth (8:38.33) in the event, respectively. Freshman Jacob Smith came in ninth in the 3,000-meter in 8:40.17.

The DMR team of Smith, Josh Cashman, Morgan and Monds finished in 10:09.37 in second place behind Liberty's time of 10:06.90.

Morgan also finished first in his heat of the 800-meter preliminaries, with Corey Grove coming in third in the heat. Both qualified for the finals on Sunday with times of 1:54.49 and 1:56.18, respectively.

Alex Ruano (2:05.61) and Josh Cashman (1:59.99) did not qualify for the 800-meter finals.

Alex Fisher also qualified for the finals of the 60-meter hurdles with a 8.37 time in the preliminaries.

On Sunday, Cherry will be joined in the 5k by This year he will be joined by Darmody, Smith and Peachee. Morgan, Monds, Smith and Peachee will also compete in the mile.

“We expect to score really well in the 5k, mile and 800-meter,” Esposito said. “A fourth place finish is a very realistic goal for us.”