Stonehill Places Four Athletes on Capital One Academic All-District I Team


Leonard

Georgaklis

Cormier

Wilcox

Skyhawks selected to Division II Cross Country/Track & Field team by CoSIDA

EASTON, Mass. (June 25, 2013) – Four members of the Stonehill College men's cross country and track and field programs have earned Capital One Academic All-District I honors as selected by College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) members in Division II from the East Region.

Stonehill's four selections is a program record for the cross country and track & field programs and gives the College six overall including its two women's honorees announced earlier last week. Juniors George Georgaklis (Westwood, Mass./Westwood) and Stephen Leonard (Chatham, N.J./Chatham) as well as sophomores Daniel Cormier (Methuen, Mass./Methuen) and Bryan Wilcox (Plantsville, Conn./Southington) have all been selected to the Division II Academic All-District I men's cross country/track & field first team, marking the first Academic All-District honors for all four recipients.

Leonard earns Academic All-District honors for the first time after a breakout outdoor season for Stonehill. He has earned a 3.43 cumulative grade point average as a biology major at the College who has collected NE-10 Commissioner's honor roll status all six semesters and Athletic Director's honor roll four times. Leonard is participating in Stonehill's Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program for the second-straight year, researching the detection, sequence analysis and antibiotic sensitivity of Methylobacterium species.

Leonard earned All-New England honors for the 10,000-meter run with a seventh place finish (32:44.68) at the New England Championships, hosted by Stonehill, after finishing third in the event at the NE-10 Championships (32:30.98) the week prior. He earned All-Northeast-10 honors for the first time with his third team honors at the NE-10 Cross Country Championships in October as he finished 23rd in 26:30.00 over the eight kilometer course.

Georgaklis also collects his first Academic All-District selection, having earned a 3.68 cumulative grade point average as a computer engineering major at Stonehill. He earned Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference honors for the first time following the indoor season this winter and received the Saint Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Students, Medal for having the highest cumulative GPA on the men's track & field team. Georgaklis has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's and Athletic Director's Honor Rolls every semester and has also collected Division II ADA Academic Achievement honors twice.

Georgaklis earned USTFCCCA All-East Region honors for the triple jump during the 2011-12 indoor season with a career-best leap of 44-feet, 0.75-inches, to place fourth at the NE-10 Championships. He followed that up with a distance of 42-10.75 for a fourth place finish at the 2012 NE-10 Outdoor Championships as well. This past season, he placed ninth at both the NE-10 Indoor (42-0.00) and Outdoor Championships (42-8.75) and qualified for the New England Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Cormier is a first time Capital One Academic All-District I selection, having earned a 3.47 cumulative grade point average as a business major at Stonehill, with a minor in English. He collected NE-10 Academic All-Conference honors for the first time following the indoor track & field season and has received NE-10 Commissioner's and Athletic Director's Honor Roll status all four semesters at the College. Cormier is a member of "Surround Sound," a musical group on campus, having sung the National Anthem at home track meets and is Community Representative for Hall Council at Stonehill.

Cormier is a four-time USTFCCCA All-East Region thrower for the Stonehill track & field program. He earned the honors for the shot put for both the indoor and outdoor seasons to go with indoor honors for the weight throw as well. He placed fourth at the NE-10 Indoor Championships for both the shot put (47-feet, 8-inches) and weight throw (50-7.50), adding a 15th place showing at the New England Outdoor Track & Field Championships (48-1.25) in the shot. He finished sixth at the NE-10 Outdoor Championships this spring for the hammer throw (144-08) and seventh in the shot put (46-0.50) Cormier won the shot put at event at the Skyhawk Invitational this spring with a distance of 47-feet, 5.25-inches. He collected All-Region honors for the first time in the shot put following the outdoor season as a freshman on a distance of 47-9.00) at the NE-10 Championships to place fourth. Cormier holds the school's indoor shot put record (47-08.00) at the NE-10 Championships in February.

Wilcox rounds out the Capital One Academic All-District honorees for Stonehill, having earned a 3.61 cumulative grade point average as a business major at Stonehill. He collected NE-10 Academic All-Conference honors following the cross country season, when he was also named to the USTFCCCA All-Academic squad. Wilcox has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's and Athletic Director's Honor Roll all four semesters at the College.

Wilcox sparked his breakout year during the cross country season, leading Stonehill to the NE-10 Championship as he earned second team All-Conference honors with his eighth place finish in 25:50 over the eight-kilometer course. He finished 29th at the NCAA East Regional (31:40.8/10K) to lead Stonehill to a spot at the NCAA Division II Championships, where he was the Skyhawks top finisher in 31:48.7 (131st/10K). Wilcox captured the 10,000-meter title at the NE-10 Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a meet-record time of 32:08.89 this spring and went on to also earn All-New England honors with a second place finish at the New England Championships in 32:02.05. He placed fourth in the 10,000-meter run as a freshman (32:37.03) and won that same event at the Bridgewater State University Bears Invitational (32:32.11) this spring.

The Stonehill men's cross country and track and field programs continued their run of excellence during the 2012-13 academic year. Cross country captured its second straight Northeast-10 Conference Championship (sixth overall) and went on to place third at the NCAA East Regional to earn a tenth straight trip to the NCAA Division II Championships. Stonehill also won its first NE-10 Indoor Track & Field Championship in February before finishing second at both the NE-10 and New England Outdoor Track & Field Championships and second two athletes to both the NCAA Division II Indoor and Outdoor Championships.

With 20 intercollegiate sports, Stonehill boasts one of the top athletic and academic programs in the country. The Skyhawks have finished in the top three in the final NE-10 Presidents' Cup standings nine straight years, winning the Cup four times, including a streak of three-straight from 2009-10 through 2011-12. This prestigious award is given to the top performing athletic school in the Northeast-10, across all sports and seasons. Stonehill has received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Achievement each of the first two years if the program's existence of honoring programs with an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90-percent or better. The Skyhawks have earned a 97% Academic Success Ranking (ASR) by the NCAA, 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 nine Skyhawk teams receiving a perfect rating of 100%. In addition, the Skyhawks are ranked sixth in the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Power Rankings used to assess the academic and athletic standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs.

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