Fullerton, Thomas Ready for NCAA Championships


Sophomore All-American Corey Thomas will be seeking his second high jump national championship this season on Friday night. (PHOTO BY Gerry Wall) 

Skyhawks set for second-straight outdoor championship appearances at Cal State-Stanislaus this weekend

EASTON, Mass. (May 24, 2011) – Two members of the Stonehill College men's track and field program will be looking to add to an impressive haul of individual honors and accolades as they compete at the 2011 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships, hosted by California State University-Stanislaus, at Al Brenda Track at Warrior Stadium this weekend.

The Championships, which run Thursday through Saturday, will be streamed live via www.ncaa.com with links also available via www.stonehillskyhawks.com. Links to live results will also be made available through the Stonehill athletics website.

Senior All-American Patrick Fullerton (Bradford, Mass./Haverhill) and sophomore All-American Corey Thomas (Brookline, Mass./BC High), who captured the indoor high jump national championship in March, will represent Stonehill at the Outdoor Championships for the second-straight year. The duo is making their third-straight trip to nationals, while Thomas has qualified for both the indoor and outdoor championships in each of his first two seasons at the College.


Senior All-American Patrick Fullerton is seeded fifth in the 1500-meter run, looking to close out his collegiate career with a national championship and second All-America performance of the year. (PHOTO BY Gerry Wall) 

Fullerton, who was part of Stonehill's All-America 4000-meter distance medley relay team at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March, has qualified for the Outdoor Championships in the 1500-meter run for the second-straight year. He is seeded fifth (out of 16 national qualifiers) with his school-record time of 3:47.34 set during his second place finish at the New England Championships last weekend. Fullerton seeks his first individual All-America honors after placing 12th in the championship round of last year's NCAA Championships in Charlotte, N.C.

Fullerton opens the championships on Thursday with the preliminary rounds scheduled to start at 8:55 p.m. (EST). The final will be run on Saturday night at 9:15 p.m. (EST). Fullerton is making his fifth trip to a national event since transferring to Stonehill from Iona College following his sophomore year. He has run with the nationally-ranked cross country program at the NCAA Championships each of the last two years, qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships twice and made his first Indoor Championships appearance with the DMR in March.

Thomas will compete at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in both the high jump and 110-meter high hurdles for the second-straight year. He is seeded tenth in the high jump with his leap of 6-feet, 11-inches, at Princeton University's Larry Ellis Invitational in April and seeded 16th in the hurdles with his school-record time of 14.31-seconds set during his second place finish at last week's New England Championships. Thomas seeks the fifth and sixth All-America honors of his career, coming off his first career double All-America performance at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March when he captured his first national championship in the high jump by clearing 7-feet, 0.5-inches and placed fifth in the 60-meter hurdles in a school-record 8.08-seconds.

Thomas will get his weekend started on Friday with the high jump finals starting at 8:30 p.m. (EST). He will also compete in the 110-meter hurdle prelims on Friday at 10:25 p.m. (EST), with the finals scheduled for Saturday at 9:35 p.m. Thomas earned All-America honors in the outdoor and indoor high jump as a freshman, placing third in both, clearing a then school-record 7-feet, 1-inch at last year's outdoor championships in Charlotte, N.C. He placed 11th in the hurdles last spring with a time of 14.75-seconds.