Record Four Earn Track & Field/XC Capital One Academic All-America Honors


Fontanella

Leonard

Wilcox

Kirkpatrick

Four Skyhawk runners give Stonehill a record five All-Americans this year

Capital One Academic All-America Track & Field/Cross Country Teams Announcement

Stonehill's All-Time Academic All-Americans

EASTON, Mass. (June 25, 2014) – A program-record four members of the Stonehill College men's track & field and cross country programs have earned a spot on the Capital One Academic All-America Division II Men's Track & Field/Cross Country third team as selected by the College Sports Information Director's of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America committee.

Seniors Trent Fontanella (Pelham, New Hampshire/Bishop Guertin) and Stephen Leonard (Chatham, New Jersey/Chatham), junior Bryan Wilcox (Plantsville, Connecticut/Southington) as well as sophomore Nick Kirkpatrick (Carmel, Indiana/Brebeuf Jesuit Prep) all earn Capital One Academic All-America honors for the first time in their careers and the four selections mark the first time Stonehill has had more than one Academic All-American for one program in the same year. The four men's track & field/cross country honorees also gives Stonehill a school-record five Academic All-Americans for the 2013-14 academic year, surpassing the previous high of three in 2011-12, after recent field hockey graduate Devin Ingersoll (Londonderry, New Hampshire/Londonderry) was named to the women's at large second team earlier this month.

Leonard, who is a two-time Capital One Academic All-District I selection, recently graduated with a 3.38 cumulative grade point average as a biology major at Stonehill. He has earned Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference honors once, following the 2013 Outdoor Track & Field season, and has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll all eight semesters and Athletic Director's Honor Roll five semesters. Leonard participated in Stonehill's Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program two years, researching the detection, sequence analysis and antibiotic sensitivity of Methylobacterium species.

Leonard is a three-time U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-East Region performer for the Stonehill cross country and track & field programs. He placed ninth at the NCAA Division II East Region Cross Country Championship last fall, helping the Skyhawks to their first regional championship since 2007 and an 11th-straight trip to the NCAA Championships. Leonard also collected All-Region honors for indoor track in the 5000-meter run as he posted a sixth place finish at the New England Indoor Championships to earn All-New England honors in 14:52.72. He capped his career with All-East honors in the 10,000-meter run with his personal-best time of 31:47.93 at the Colonial Relays in April.

In addition to his three All-Region performances, Leonard is a three-time All-New England honoree, adding a pair of awards in the 10,000-meter run each of the last two years to go with his 5000-meter recognition this past winter. He placed eighth at the 2014 New England Championships (32:03.55) after finishing seventh in 2013 (32:44.68). Leonard earned All-Northeast-10 honors for the first time in his career after leading Stonehill to a third-straight NE-10 Cross Country Championship with his team-leading seventh place finish in 25:48 (8-kilometers). He also placed third overall in the 10,000-meter run at the 2013 and 2014 NE-10 Outdoor Track & Field Championships as well as the 5000-meter run at the 2014 NE-10 Indoor Championships.


Senior Stephen Leonard is an Academic All-American for the first time in his career. (PHOTO BY SportsPix)

Fontanella earns Capital One Academic All-America honors for the first time after also becoming an All-District I selection for the first time in his career this spring. He has earned a 3.70 cumulative grade point average as a criminology and psychology major at Stonehill. While he will return for one more semester and compete with the cross country program, Fontanella recently received the College's Edward E. Martin Scholar-Athlete Award at the annual Senior Student-Athlete Dinner and is a five-time Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference selection with a pair of awards for indoor and outdoor track & field (2013 & 2014) and one for cross country (2013). He has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll all eight semesters and Athletic Director's Honor Roll seven semesters and is a member of both the Edwin H. Sutherland and Psi Chi Honor Societies. Fontanella is a two-time Division II ADA Academic Achievement Award recipient and Stonehill's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Chairperson.

Fontanella is a two-time USTFCCCA All-East Region performer at Stonehill, collecting the honors for the 3000-meter run this past winter for the indoor track season and 5000-meter run this spring for the outdoor season. He posted a personal-best time of 8:29.90 in the 3000-meters at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational at Boston University in February to go with his season-best time of 14:58.65 to finish 14th in the 5000-meters at the New England Outdoor Championships. The four-time New England Championships qualifier has earned three All-Northeast-10 awards over his career. He is a two-time All-NE-10 performer for cross country, placing 17th at the 2011 NE-10 Championships (25:08.21) and eighth in 2013 (25:49) over the eight-kilometer run. Fontanella added a second place finish at the NE-10 Indoor Track & Field Championships in the 3000-meter run in February (8:37.76).

Wilcox, also a two-time Academic All-District selection, has earned a 3.69 cumulative grade point average as a business major at the conclusion of his junior year. He is a four-time NE-10 Academic All-Conference selection, earning the NE-10 Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award for cross country this year, collecting a pair of cross country Academic All-Conference honors (2012 & 2013) and two for Outdoor Track & Field (2013 & 2014) to date. Wilcox has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll all six semesters and Athletic Director's Honor Roll four semesters while earning the Division II Athletic Director's Association (ADA) Academic Achievement Award for having a cumulative GPA over 3.50.

Wilcox is a two-time USTFCCCA All-East Region performer with the cross country and track & field programs. He collected his first career All-East award with his 11th place finish to help lead Stonehill to the NCAA Division II East Regional championship and 11th-straight trip to the NCAA Championships as he completed the 10-kilometer course in 32:19.6. Wilcox added All-Region honors following the 2014 Outdoor Track season for the 10,000-meter run with his personal-best time of 31:56.59 at the Colonial Relays in April. The three-time New England Championships qualifier has earned All-New England honors twice with a second place finish in the 10,000-meter run in 2013 (32:02.05) to go with an eighth place finish at the 2014 Indoor championships in the 5000-meter run (14:59.93).


Senior Trent Fontanella is also an Academic All-American for the first time. (PHOTO BY SportsPix)

Wilcox is an All-Northeast-10 performer in cross country each of the last two seasons, helping Stonehill to a pair of NE-10 titles. He finished 14th at the 2013 NE-10 Championships (26:02.5) to go with an eighth place finish in 2012 (25:50.8). Wilcox won the 2013 NE-10 10,000-meter championship at the Outdoor Championships with a time of 32:08.09 to also collect All-Northeast-10 honors, finishing sixth in the event this spring (33:12.05).

Kirkpatrick has earned both Academic All-America and Academic All-District I honors in his first year of eligibility with his 3.73 cumulative grade point average as an electrical engineering major at the College. He earned Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference honors for the first time this past winter for indoor track and has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's and Athletic Director's Honor Roll all four semesters at the College to date. Kirkpatrick earned the St. Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Students, Medal at the annual Academic Excellence Recognition Breakfast for having the highest cumulative GPA for both the men's cross country and track & field programs.

Kirkpatrick was a member of Stonehill's 4000-meter distance medley relay team which earned All-America honors with a seventh place finish at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in March with a time of 9:58.33, running the opening 1200-meter leg. Kirkpatrick earned USTFCCCA All-East Region honors for both the DMR and the one mile run after a personal-best time of 4:17.70 to finish fourth at the University of Rhode Island Coaches' Tribute meet in February. He is also part of Stonehill's school-record 4x800-meter relay team that finished second at the 2013 New England Outdoor Championships in 7:34.77.

Kirkpatrick has earned three All-New England awards with the 4x800-meter relay, finishing eighth at the 2013 Indoor Championships (7:42.58) and fourth at the 2014 Indoor Championships (7:42.33). He has collected All-Northeast-10 honors with the 4x800 at the 2013 Indoor Championships (7:54.13) as well as the 1000-meter run (2:30.09) in 2014.

The Stonehill men's cross country and track and field programs continued their run of excellence during the 2013-14 academic year. Cross country captured its third straight Northeast-10 Conference Championship (seventh overall) and went on to win the NCAA East Regional for the third time in program history to earn an 11th-straight trip to the NCAA Division II Championships. Stonehill also placed second at both the NE-10 Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships, marking the fourth-straight year the Skyhawks have finished in the top two during the indoor season and third runner-up finish over the last four outdoor championships. The Skyhawks placed fifth at the New England Indoor Championships and 23rd at the Outdoor Championships, placing a combined seven student-athletes in the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, collecting a pair of All-America awards.

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 ten straight years, including a second place finish in 2013-14, 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 three years of 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 ten 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. Stonehill has also been the host site for the 2016 NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championships at W.B. Mason Stadium.  

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