PHILADELPHIA -- The Yale men's track and field team opened competition at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Saturday. Held in Penn's famous Franklin Field stadium, the Bulldogs showed their spirit in the Heps atmosphere, with many athletes advancing to finals on Sunday. 

Yale had athletes competing in three finals on Saturday: the 10,000m, the long jump and the hammer throw. In the last event of the day, Sean Kay, Stephen Moody and Cade Brown all showed phenomenal strength to place seventh, ninth and 12th respectively over the grueling 10 kilometer distance. Despite having to navigate continual pace changes throughout the race, Kay finished in a time of 30:10.90, while Moody ran 30:16.54 in his debut, ahead of Brown's 30:33.90. Kay now turns his attention to recovery before competing in Sunday's 5000m.

Earlier in the day, Isaiah Udofia had placed 10th in the long jump thanks to his 6.94m leap. Jake Sun also placed 10th in the hammer throw after a 51.93m effort, with teammate Nolan Recker finishing 12th in 48.99m. 

Among those surviving and advancing were Jacob Kao, whose 21.33 clocking in the 200m, just 0.01 off his personal best, saw him make it through to Sunday's final. With the top six athletes in each event scoring points in the team standings, Kao will be keen to improve even further upon his time and score some valuable points for Yale Sunday. Joining him in the 200m were James Grindle, Jeamy Williams and captain Harry Grindle, whose inspiring pre-competition speech had the team fired up and ready to deliver some big performances. Kao and Grindle had both earlier ran in the 100m alongside Kit Colson and Justin Yazdi, with Kao's 10.74 narrowly missing out on a finals berth, while Grindle and Colson both dipped under 11 seconds. 

Also moving on to Sunday's final is Drake Prince, who won his heat of the 800m in 1:50.03, the second-fastest time of the day. Teammates Thomas Cirrito and Austin Montini both came close to joining him, falling just short. After Prince's final, all three will likely line up to form a dangerous 4x800m team Sunday. Fellow middle distance runners Owen Karas and Liam Garrett also advanced in the 1500m, displaying impressive closing speed in each of their heats. Garrett finished fourth in his heat in 3:48.88, while Karas finished second in his with a 3:47.76 PR. Also representing Yale in that event were Elon Abergel, Calvin Katz and Richard Sturtevant, each of whom could be called upon for a relay leg Sunday. 

The other Bulldogs in action came in the 400m, where Andrew Farr only narrowly missed out on making the final after PR'ing by almost half a second with his 48.03 clocking. Aaron Miller and Simon Jupp also competed, running times of 48.37 and 49.68 respectively. All three will be back for Sunday's 4x400m. 

The Bulldogs showed impressive strength and tenacity Saturday, and will hope to step it up a notch further on Sunday. With many finals, and opportunities to score points, still to come, expect another strong day from Yale. 

Results can be found here.