Polito Leads Stonehill to 11th Place after Day One of New England Championships


Junior Stephen Polito has earned All-New England honors in the 10,000-meter run for the second-straight year with his runner-up finish today. 

Worcester, Mass., native runs second in 10,000-meters, while Penney also earns All-New England honors in 5000  

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (May 13, 2011) – The Stonehill College men's track and field team, ranked third in this week's U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Regional rankings index, sits in 11th place after day two of the 2011 New England Intercollegiate Track & Field Championships, hosted by Southern Connecticut State University, at Jess Dow Field today.

Stonehill compiled ten points on its first day of the event to stand in 11th place of the 23 programs that have collected points so far. Host Southern Connecticut State leads the field with 46 points, followed by the University of Rhode Island in second with 33.50 points and the University of Vermont in third with 27. Stonehill ranks third among NE-10 programs behind the first place Owls and fifth place University of Massachusetts Lowell (20), and the Skyhawks are sixth among non-Division I teams.

Junior Stephen Polito (Worcester, Mass./Doherty Memorial) led the Stonehill effort on Friday with his runner-up finish in the field of 27 competitors in the 10,000-meter run. The two-time Northeast-10 Conference champion for the event finished with a personal best time of 31:14.61 to collect All-New England honors for the second-straight year.

Sophomore Ethan Penney (Haverhill, Mass./Haverhill) earned All-New England honors for the first time in the 5000-meter run with his seventh place finish (in the field of 30 runners) in 14:58.68. He led a contingent of four Skyhawks in the race as senior Daniel Fidler (Carlisle, Mass./Concord-Carlisle) placed 14th in 15:11.30, senior Zachary Lankow (Saugus, Mass./St. John's Prep) was 23rd in 15:39.19 and junior Corey Donahoe (Billerica, Mass./Billerica Memorial) took 25th in 15:50.17.


Sophomore Ethan Penney posted an All-New England performance in the 5000-meter run, finishing seventh. 

Sophomore All-American Corey Thomas (Brookline, Mass./BC High) and freshman Xavier Harris-Dixon (New Bedford, Mass./New Bedford) both qualified for tomorrow's finals in the 110-meter high hurdles. Thomas qualified first with the fastest time in today's preliminary heats of 14.56-seconds, while Harris-Dixon qualified seventh in a season-best 15.03.

Sophomore Kevin McCann (Monroe, Conn./Masuk) placed tenth in the pole vault with a school-record matching height of 14-feet, 3.25-inches that he set at the UMass Minuteman Invitational on April 16.

Other Stonehill performances of note:

Junior Pak Lul (Portland, Maine/North Yarmouth Academy) just missed out on qualifying for the finals for the 400-meter dash with his time of 48.84-seconds – a quarter second shy of the qualifying mark.

 

Sophomore Jonathan Gelcius (Greenwich, Conn./Greenwich) placed 12th in the javelin with a distance of 179-feet, 10-inches.

 

Junior John Driscoll (Revere, Mass./Revere) was 28th in the 400-meter hurdles with his time of 58.14-seconds.

 

The New England Championships conclude on Saturday with Day Three of the event at Southern Connecticut State's Jess Dow Field starting at 10 a.m.