Santo |
Dimmick |
Hamalian |
Three Skyhawks collect Academic All-District™ Honors for men’s track & field/cross country for first time
2016 CoSIDA Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-District Teams
Stonehill's all-time CoSIDA Academic All-District List
EASTON, Mass. (May 26, 2016) – Three members of the Stonehill College men’s cross country and track & field programs have earned a spot on the CoSIDA Academic All-District™ first team for the first time in their careers, as selected by College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) members in Division II from the East Region.
Junior Joe Santo (Newburyport, Massachusetts/Newburyport) and sophomores Jason Dimmick (Sutton, Massachusetts/Sutton) and Mark Hamalian (West Bridgewater, Massachusetts/Bridgewater-Raynham) were all selected to the Academic All-District™ I first team for the first time in their career, marking the fourth straight year Stonehill has had at least three Academic All-District™ honorees for track & field/cross country. The trio now gives the men’s track & field and cross country programs 18 Academic All-District™ honorees all-time. The Skyhawks are now eligible for Academic All-America® selection, as voted on my members of the CoSIDA Academic All-America® committee, to be announced next month.
Santo, who has earned a 3.39 cumulative grade point average as a marketing major at Stonehill, is a two-time All-Academic honoree in cross country from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association (USTFCCCA). He has also been named to the Northeast-10 Conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll all six semesters and Athletic Director’s Honor Roll five semesters.
Santo has earned USTFCCCA All-East Region honors twice this year for the indoor 5000-meter run as well as the 10,000-meter run during the outdoor season. He is a two-time participant at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, finishing 135th last fall in Joplin, Missouri, in 31:45.6 to finish second among Stonehill runners on the ten-kilometer course, and is a two-time All-Northeast-10 performer in cross country, finishing tenth at the 2015 NE-10 Championships (25:44.7/6K) and 12th in 2014 (28:32.6/6K), while posting a pair of career-best 32nd place finishes at the New England Cross Country Championships in 2013 and 2015.
Santo is a two-time All-Northeast-10 performer in track and field, finishing second for the indoor 5000-meter run (15:06.13) at the NE-10 Indoor Championships in February and then adding a second place finish in the 10,000-meter run (31:16.24) at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships earlier this month. He also earned All-New England honors for the first time in his career with a sixth place finish in the 5000-meter run (14:51.82) at the New England Indoor Championships in February.
Dimmick, who has earned a 3.77 cumulative grade point average as a mathematics major at Stonehill, was also named to the NE-10 Academic All-Conference team for indoor track & field this year and was a USTFCCCA All-Academic honoree for track & field as a freshman. He has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and Athletic Director’s Honor Roll all four semesters at the College and has been selected to Stonehill’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program to work on Mathematics Research Experiences for Undergraduates with Hsin-hao Su and Heiko Todt, associate professors of mathematics at the College.
Dimmick has been a member of four All-New England relay teams and two All-Northeast-10 relays over his two year career at Stonehill. He was part of the Skyhawks’ 4000-meter distance medley relay which provisionally qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships this winter with its seventh place finish (9:56.71) at the New England Indoor Championships in February. Dimmick was also part of Stonehill’s 4x800-meter relay which finished fourth at both the New England Indoor Championships (7:40.50) and NE-10 Indoor Championships (7:52.48) this winter and also placed third at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships (7:41.35) and seventh at the New England Outdoors (7:53.44).
Dimmick also finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles (55.53) at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships earlier this month and was fourth in the 500-meter dash (1:05.81) at the NE-10 Indoor Championships. He was part of a 4x800-meter relay which finished second at both the NE-10 Indoor and Outdoor Championships his freshman season and also collected All-New England status with a fifth place finish at the 2015 New England Indoor Championships.
Hamalian has earned a 3.94 cumulative grade point average as a physics major at Stonehill, after posting a perfect 4.0 GPA each of the last two semesters. He was selected to the NE-10 Academic All-Conference team for indoor track & field this winter and has received the St. Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Students, medal for having the highest cumulative GPA on the men’s track & field team. Hamalian has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and Athletic Director’s Honor Roll all four semesters and will participate in Stonehill’s SURE program this summer with David Simon, associate professor of physics and astronomy, on a project titled, Bessel Beams and Light Petals.
Sophomore Mark Hamalian was the leading vote-getter on the Academic All-District XC/Track & Field ballot for Division II in District I. |
Hamalian is a two-time USTFCCCA All-East Region performer for multi-events, earning the honors this year for the heptathlon during the indoor season and decathlon this spring. He holds the school record on the decathlon after posting 5,889 points in his ninth place finish at the Holy Cross Crusades in April, before finishing fourth at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships (5,764 pts) earlier this month. Hamalian placed fifth at the NE-10 Indoor Championships for the high jump, clearing 6-feet, 0.5-inches, and qualified for the New England Indoor Championships for the long jump as a freshman.
Hamalian was named the Northeast-10 Track Athlete of the Week for the first time in his career on March 28 following Stonehill’s season-opening outdoor meet at UMass Lowell. He posted a first place finish in the 110-meter high hurdles in 16.89-seconds and also ran the anchor leg for the Skyhawks 4x400-meter relay which finished second in 3:28.99. Hamalian also cleared a personal-best 11-feet, 5.75-inches in the pole vault for a sixth place finish that weekend.
The Stonehill men’s cross country program qualified for the NCAA Division II Championships for the 13th straight year last fall after finishing third at the East Regional Championship to go with a runner-up finish at the Northeast-10 Conference Championships. The Skyhawks went on to post a fourth place team finish at the NE-10 Indoor Track & Field Championship and then a third place performance at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships after winning its home Skyhawk Invitational for the eighth straight year in late April.
With 20 intercollegiate sports, Stonehill boasts one of the top athletic and academic programs in the country. In addition to winning its fifth Northeast-10 Presidents' Cup following the 2014-15 academic year, the Skyhawks have received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Achievement each of the first five years of the program's existence of honoring institutions with an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90-percent or better. Stonehill has earned a 96% Academic Success Ranking (ASR) by the NCAA two straight years, which considers the academic success rate of the institution based on the graduation rate of student-athletes, good for fifth among all NCAA Division II institutions, with 12 Skyhawk teams receiving a perfect rating of 100%. In addition, the Skyhawks are ranked third in the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Power Rankings for Division II used to assess the academic and athletic standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs. Stonehill has also been selected as the host of the 2016 NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championships at W.B. Mason Stadium.
For the latest on Stonehill Athletics, follow the Skyhawks via social media on Twitter and Facebook. Fans can also download the Stonehill Skyhawks "Front Row" mobile app, powered by PrestoSports, on iTunes and the Android Market.