Emory University senior Theresa Ford finished the first day of the two day heptathlon in first place, pacing all of the Eagles' competitors during the first day of competition at the 2013 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Ford finished the first day with 3,040 points in the heptathlon, and is on pace to break her own school record in the multi-event, set earlier this season.  She will enter the final day of competition in the event with a 64-point lead over second-place Taylor Hudson of Cortland State, and a 119 point advantage over third-place Jocelyn Redlinski of North Central.

Highlighting Ford's performances on day one was her school-record setting height in the high jump.  Ford cleared the bar at a height of 1.72 meters to win the event and claim 879 points towards her heptathlon score.  The mark bested the previous Emory high jump record of 1.71 meters, set by former Eagle Ashley DeMarco at the 2007 NCAA Championships.

Ford also recorded career-best marks in two other heptathlon events on Thursday.  She opened competition by finishing fifth in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.94 seconds, breaking the 15-second mark for the first time in her career and earning 850 points towards her total.  In the 200-meter dash, Ford finished 10^th with a career-best time of 26.11 seconds, adding an additional 788 points.  Rounding out her day-one performances, she finished 12^th in the shot put with a toss of 9.90 meters to score 523 points.

Ford will aim to continue her strong performance in the heptathlon on Friday starting at 4:00 PM ET, when the multi-event will wrap up with the long jump, javelin throw and 800-meter run.  In addition, Ford will look to repeat her school-record performance in the high jump when she competes in the individual event on Friday at 3:15 PM.

Emory participated in three other events on the first day of competition.  Emory's 4x400-meter relay team of sophomore Debora Adjibaba, sophomore Electra Korn, freshman Julie Williamson and senior Kaele Leonard finished 13^th with a time of 3:51.42, four spots short of qualifying.  The 4x100-meter relay team of junior Pollara Cobb, Leonard, junior Morgan Monroe and Adjibaba finished 16^th in the event with a time of 48.45 seconds, failing to qualify for the finals of the event.  Adjibaba also fell short of qualifying for the finals in the 200-meter dash, finishing 17^th with a time of 24.84 seconds.

In addition to Ford completing the heptathlon and competing in the high jump on Friday, three other Eagles will also be in action during the second day of competition at the NCAA Division III Championships.  Monroe will compete in the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries at 6:05 PM ET, Leonard will run in the preliminaries of the 400-meter dash at 6:50 PM ET, and Adjibaba will be featured in the 100-meter preliminaries at 7:30 PM ET.