Two weeks ago at the ISU Classic, ISU junior Hillary Bor did not even finish a heat of the men’s mile. In his first heat, he fell down at the 800-meter mark, and in the second heat Bor returned to run ahead of the field and set the pace for the first two laps before dropping out again.

The performance was a shock for coach Corey Ihmels, who said earlier this week that Bor needed to “just stay on the track” at this weekend’s Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships.

Not only did Bor stay on the track this weekend, he was the first on the track to cross the finish line, winning the men’s mile run in a time of 4:12.59 to earn his first Big 12 Indoor Championship.

“It feels great,” Bor said. “I’m just happy [because] I’ve been looking for the Big 12 title for like three years now and it just feels great.”

In one of the more exciting races of the day, Oklahoma’s Eric Harasyn jumped out to a large lead as the field started the final lap, but Bor was able to catch him down the final stretch and edged him out at the line winning by a mere six-hundredths of a second.

“I was just trying to stay in second place and be out of trouble so I [could] try to win in the last 300 meters,” Bor said.

Bor’s chase after a Big 12 title has been a steady upward progression as he finished third in 2008 and second in 2009.

“He’s got a lot of heart,” Ihmels said of Bor. “He’s a pretty emotional kid; he’s sensitive, conscientious and may not have been the best guy in the race, but he showed a lot of heart down that home stretch.”

Bor, who also finished fifth in the 3,000-meter run, wasn’t the only Cyclone to cross the finish line in the mile as seniors Brandon Rooney and Jory Zunich were able to finish fourth and fifth, earning the Cyclones 19 total points in the race.

Rooney had one of the busiest weekends of any Cyclone, running two preliminary races in the mile run and 1,000-meter run Friday, followed by the finals Saturday. Along with his fourth-place finish in the mile, Rooney scored six more points with a third-place finish in the 1,000-meter run.

“To score 19 points in one event was something we haven’t done since the era when we were winning championships, so that was something special,” Rooney said. “Just to be a part of it in my senior year, I can’t be more stoked.”

Zunich earned the eighth and final qualifying time in the mile run before setting a new personal record in the final with his time of 4:13.88. Another of the dual-event competitors, Zunich and his teammates knew the meet would be both a physical and mental challenge.

“When things are going well, it’s really not bad; all of us just tried to go out there and take each race at a time and focus on the task at hand,” Zunich said.

The 19 points in the mile were a huge boost for the ISU men’s team as it recorded its best finish — seventh — since 2000, when it also finished seventh. The 50 team points was the third-most recorded by an ISU men’s track and field since the conference’s inception in 1997. On paper, the men’s team was ranked No. 122 out of 150 nationally and last in the Big 12. Ihmels was proud that the distance runners stepped up to the challenge he laid out for them this week.

“The guys were picked to finish last in the meet, and we had a team meeting where I told the distance guys that if they didn’t come through, we would finish last,” Ihmels said. “It was fun to see and they took some pride in getting that done.”

The Oklahoma Sooners became the first team other than Nebraska or Texas to win a men’s Big 12 Indoor Track and Field championship, edging out the Huskers by four team points, 114–110.

Also contributing to the men’s seventh-place finish from the distance group was the second-place distance medley relay team of sophomore Clint Martin, junior Elphas Sang, freshman Rico Loy and Bor.

Sophomore Yonas Mebrahtu, who has battled a knee injury all season, managed to finish fourth in the 5,000-meter run.

Junior thrower Josh Koglin entered the Big 12 meet ranked fifth in the weight throw and finished fifth with a final throw of 61-05.25. Along with many other ISU competitors, Koglin still has hopes for a chance at qualifying for the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Koglin will get that chance Friday as the Lied Recreational Athletic Center will host its eighth and final collegiate meet of the season with the last-chance NCAA Qualifier meet.