Ole Miss began the 2026 SEC Indoor Championships with a silver medal in the men’s distance medley relay (DMR) on Thursday at Bryan-College Station, Texas. The team of Gabe Scales, Cade Flatt, Carson Turner, and Evan Thornton-Sherman finished with a time of 9:30.34, less than half a second behind South Carolina’s winning mark of 9:30.08.
Evan Thornton-Sherman ran the anchor leg for Ole Miss with a mile split of 3:55.35, helping secure the second-place finish and marking the eighth-fastest DMR time in school history. The earlier legs included Scales running 2:59.55 for 1200 meters, Flatt completing the 400 meters in 46.49 seconds, and Turner posting a time of 1:48.96 for the 800 meters.
This result continues Ole Miss’s strong tradition in the men’s DMR at the conference meet; since 2014, they have placed as silver medalists or better in eleven out of thirteen attempts.
All sixteen points scored by Ole Miss so far came from distance events late in Thursday’s schedule. In the men’s 5K race before the relay, Aiden Britt finished fourth with a personal best of 13:41.31—moving him to fourth all-time indoors at Ole Miss—and Kidus Misgina placed sixth at 13:42.77.
On the women’s side, sophomore Lily Beattie earned Ole Miss four and a half points by tying her indoor personal record (PR) in pole vault at 4.15m/13-07.25 to tie for fourth place. Katie McFarland also cleared an overall PR height of 4.15m/13-07.25 to tie for ninth overall and join Beattie as sixth-best on Ole Miss’s all-time indoor list.
The women’s distance medley relay team narrowly missed scoring after finishing ninth with their season-best time of 11:14.15—fifth-fastest ever at Ole Miss—less than half a second behind Mississippi State.
Freshman Patchnalie Compere set an indoor Haitian national record and broke her own school freshman record by running a personal best of 23.18 seconds in the women’s 200-meter dash prelims.
Competition resumes Friday morning with more field events scheduled.
The Day One men’s team standings put Arkansas first with eighteen points, followed by Ole Miss with sixteen and Alabama with fifteen points after three events scored.
