2025 NCAA Indoors Day 2 Men: Ethan Strand Gets Revenge on Gary Martin in 3K as Abel Teffra Takes Down Nathan Green in Mile

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – One night after getting outkicked by Virginia’s Gary Martin on the anchor leg of the distance medley relay, North Carolina’s Ethan Strand responded like a champion by turning the tables and running down Martin on the last lap to win the men’s 3,000 meters in 7:52.03 at the end of a pulsating final day at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. 

Late moves were a theme on Saturday as Oregon’s Matthew Erickson seized the lead at the same spot on the track as Strand – the start of the final turn, just under 100m to go – to win the 800 in 1:46.43. Georgetown’s Abel Teffra waited a little longer to take down Washington’s Nathan Green in the mile, pulling ahead in the home straight to win in 3:53.60 and break Cole Hocker’s meet record. All three — Strand, Erickson, and Teffra — were first-time NCAA champions.

Arkansas’ Jordan Anthony (6.49 in the 60), Kentucky’s Carli Makarawu (20.13 in the 200), Georgia’s Will Floyd (45.43 in the 400), and Auburn’s Ja’Kobe Tharp (7.45 in the 60 hurdles) won the sprint events as the USC men won the team title with 39 points – the Trojans’ first indoor title in 53 years (and the lowest winning score since 2001). 

*Full results

Men’s Mile: Georgetown’s Abel Teffra has Ethiopian heritage and is a fan of Yared Nuguse but credits double threshold for helping him get the win

Georgetown redshirt senior Abel Teffra, who had never finished higher than 5th at NCAAs, used a 26.72 final 200 to finish off a 55.02 final 400 (1:54.70 final 800) to move past Washington’s Nathan Green, the 2023 NCAA 1500 champ, to win the mile in 3:53.60 to Green’s 3:53.99. Teffra snapped Washington’s NCAA 1500/mile win streak, which began at the 2022 outdoor champs, at five straight. Boston University’s Foster Malleck was third in 3:54.42 with Fouad Messaoudi of Oklahoma State, the 2023 NCAA 3000 champ, third in 3:54.72.

Teffra takes down Green

“Something that my coach added this fall was double threshold. I’ve always lacked that strength side of running,” said Teffra. 

“I think I was like second to last at the national meet [in XC] and just this past year we started doing double threshold and I was 65th. So, I think a lot of it is just building my aerobic system, building it up, and I feel like I have so much more building left in it to do. I think this year what’s helped me is just really working on my strength,” added Teffra, who has improved his NCAA XC finish from 250th to 159th to 65th.

Both of Teffra’s parents were born in Ethiopia and he is very much aware of Yared Nuguse’s exploits as a result (Nuguse’s parents are also immigrants from Ethiopia).

“I was in high school when Yared won the outdoor 1500 in 2019 and I was like, ‘Oh, this guy is Ethiopian-American,’ and I was like, I want to be like that one day and I mean, it’s crazy how it’s come full circle.”

https://youtu.be/sH5ThOqWOzo

Nathan Green: “I can’t be mad about that”

Green ran a strong tactical race. He tried to get to the lead at 1k and couldn’t quite get around Princeton’s Harrison Witt, but took it at 1100 and held it until the final straight. He ran fast and closed well. He just lost to a better athlete on the day.

Green was the only former NCAA champ in the field, was 5th at the Olympic Trials in June, and entered this meet as the favorite given he has the fastest season’s best. But he knew the competition would be good and said he expected Teffra would be the guy to push him the most.

“I expected it to be this hard,” Green said. “He just came out on top. Fantastic runner, hell of a competitor. I played it how I thought I should have. I can’t be mad about that. Just not the man of the day.”

That is a good perspective to have. And historically, Green has been better outdoors than indoors. In 2023, he was 5th at NCAA indoors with a 3:52.76 sb and 1st outdoors. In 2024, he didn’t make the final at NCAA indoors (though he ran the 800, not the mile) and had a 3:53.74 sb. He only finished 10th at NCAA outdoors but rebounded to take 5th at the Olympic Trials in 3:32.20. This winter, he ran 3:50.74 and was 2nd at NCAA indoors. He should still be very dangerous outdoors.

And he will need to be. Between Green, Teffra, Strand, Messaoudi, and Martin, the 1500 final in June could feature up to five NCAA champions.

We also bumped into Washington coach Andy Powell after the race and offered our commiserations for the end of UW’s incredible streak of five straight NCAA 1500/mile titles. Powell was a little disappointed but also said it could also be a good thing and said he hoped to be able to start a new streak outdoors.

Men’s 3000: Strand-Martin II delivers again

UNC’s Ethan Strand and Virginia’s Gary Martin entered the 2025 NCAA indoor meet firmly in the spotlight. Strand entered the history books on February 1 by running 3:48.32 to take more than two seconds off the collegiate record in the mile and become the first NCAA runner under 3:50. Seven days later, Martin joined him in the sub-3:50 club by running 3:48.82 at Millrose. The stage was set for a showdown at NCAAs.

But it would not come in the mile. Both men scratched the event so they could double up in the distance medley relay and 3000m at NCAAs, and that meant the fans in Virginia Beach were treated to two classic races rather than one. 

One of the things that makes the NCAA meet great is that new stars are being minted all the time, which means that races that are billed as head-to-head showdowns often fail to materialize. But in Virginia Beach, the Strand-Martin matchups definitely materialized, producing a sensational two-act drama that ended with the score tied at one NCAA title apiece. Both men delivered on the hype and more.

Friday was Martin’s night, as he passed Strand on the back straight to close out the victory for Virginia with a 3:48.12 anchor leg, the fastest-ever on a DMR. Strand was shaken but not broken, leaving the arena ruing his decision to take the lead with 400 meters to go rather than wait until the last lap.

Tonight, Strand waited until the last lap to make his move, and it worked out beautifully as he powered away from Martin to win in 7:52.03 thanks to a 54.06 last 400 and world-class 25.39 final 200. Martin, whose own last lap of 26.22 was hardly unimpressive, was second in 7:52.69, just holding off Wisconsin’s Adam Spencer (7:52.71).

“I mean we just go back and forth. Sometimes I’m gonna win.  Sometimes, he’s gonna win,” said Strand. “I came out on top today but he came out on top yesterday. So it’s just kind of that mutual agreement that, yeah, we’re both pretty good right now and you can’t win them all.”

Strand said the key to tonight’s win was that he was much more patient. Strand much prefers to be the hunter than the hunted, and he regretted taking the lead with 400m to go in the DMR on Friday night.

“I waited [tonight]. I waited a little longer. I think I’m most deadly with 200 meters to go and obviously in certain scenarios you can’t go with 200 to go. I think in that DMR last night I could have waited and I chose not to. Tonight, I chose to wait and it worked out,” responded Strand when asked the difference between last night and tonight.

Strand said that going early last night was most definitely not the plan given to him by coach Chris Miltenberg.

“We’ve always talked about ‘wait and go last, wait and go last,’ and to be honest I did the exact opposite of everything we’ve ever talked about last night. I got a little antsy and maybe a little nervous [and] I thought I could do it. It’s something that I had thought about by myself — not talking with (Miltenberg about) — like, ‘Hey, I might be strong enough to go with 450 to go’ and I did it. Maybe I shouldn’t have but you live and you learn and I think that’s you know part of what made today so so much better.”

Gary Martin: “Overall, really good weekend”

Martin was disappointed to have lost, but had good perspective on tonight’s race. Clearly, he and Strand are both in similar (amazing) shape right now. Martin didn’t run a bad race. He just got beaten by a great athlete.

“I feel like I ran a pretty tactically-sound race and was smart when I moved up and saved something for the last 200,” Martin said. “But I just didn’t have that last gear when I needed it. It happens. I had it last night, didn’t have it today. But overall, really good weekend.”

Martin also said he didn’t think running a 3:48 split in the 1600 last night hurt him very much, noting that the slow early pace helped him.

“I knew I was going to have some juice in the legs,” Martin said. “And I felt pretty good with 600 to go.”

Liam Murphy said he must improve tactically if he is to win an NCAA title

Murphy was 4th at NCAA indoors in the 3k and went into this weekend hoping to win a title. He realized after last year that most of the big dogs at NCAAs double at the indoor championships, so he entered the 5k and 3k this year. And he especially wanted to make sure he ran well in the 5k on Friday.

“The best way of going about [a double] is making sure you get a good result the first day,” Murphy said. “Because you’re going to be tired regardless going into the second day.”

That did not happen. Murphy finished 11th in the 5k and said it was difficult to process that result and put it behind him. He rallied well to finish 4th tonight, but Murphy said he wants to be winning NCAA titles and not just contending.

Murphy also said he needs to learn to run a bit better tactically. A Villanova assistant coach rewatched his 5k from Friday and calculated that Murphy ran seven seconds worth of extra distance in the first 4k of the race. Tonight, he wasn’t in position to contend for the win as he was only 9th at the bell before passing five guys to finish 4th.

“It really adds up when everyone’s so talented,” Murphy said. “You just can’t afford to make those mistakes.”

Men’s 800: Matthew Erickson caps a banner weekend with a victory

Erickson won the Big 10 800m title, but few would have picked him for the win entering this weekend. In four years at Oregon, he only qualified for NCAAs once and never made the final. His season’s best before NCAAs was 1:46.58, which made him the #15 seed out of 16 – and just .05 away from failing to qualify for the meet. Yet he dominated his heat and timed his move perfectly to take the win in the 800 in 1:46.43 and lead a Canadian 1-2 alongside Mississippi State’s Abdullahi Hassan (1:46.65). 

Erickson said he felt confident and comfortable with any kind of race and ran smartly by positioning himself in second behind Georgetown’s Tinoda Matsatsa at the bell and holding off big charges from Hassan and Cal Poly’s Aidan McCarthy (3rd in 1:46.78). 

Erickson said he has been working on two cues in races to work on his form. The first is keeping his legs turning over quickly. The second is keeping his hands dropped. He still had to be reminded about the last one today – UO assistant Chris Solinsky shouted it out with 150m to go – but Erickson believes those cues have made a difference.

“I could hear him yell, ‘drop your hands,’ so that’s what I did,” Erickson said. “I just tried to stay relaxed as much as I could.”

Erickson was also pleased to be part of a Canadian 1-2 with Hassan. Erickson, whose outdoor pb is 1:45.74, has some work to do to hit the Worlds auto standard of 1:44.50 (though he could still qualify by ranking) but was optimistic given Canada has four spots in the 800 this year thanks to Marco Arop having the bye as defending champion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aNrHHPpB2E

There were a few trends among Saturday’s mid-d/distance champions

Six athletes won NCAA mid-d/distance titles on Saturday, and they had a few things in common. The most notable was that none of them had won an NCAA title before. Yet five of the six were seniors. Often when a senior wins a title, they have at least been competitive in their event in the past, but only 3k champ Ceili McCabe had ever finished in the top three at NCAAs before. And the two 800 champions, Matthew Erickson and Makayla Paige, had never even made an NCAA final before winning it all.

Men’s champs Erickson, Teffra, and Strand all won in similar fashion, sitting just off the lead at the bell before using a big move in the final 100 meters. Meanwhile women’s champs Paige, Nielsen, and McCabe took the opposite approach as all had the lead for the last 3+ laps.

Saturday’s NCAA mid-d/distance champions

The women’s 800 and mile runner-ups, Victoria Bossong of Harvard and Mena Scatchard of Princeton, also fit into this category. Both are seniors at Ivy League schools, yet neither had made an NCAA final before this weekend (and Scatchard had never even made the NCAA track meet at all). Yet each woman finished as NCAA runner-up.