Thomas earned the fifth All-America honor of his career overall, with his fourth high jump performance following tonight's sixth place finish. (PHOTO BY Blake Wood) |
Stonehill sophomore places sixth in high jump, misses final for 110-meter high hurdles
Thomas, the NCAA Division II indoor high jump national champion in March, placed sixth this evening as he cleared 6-feet, 10.75-inches. He finished tied with Central Missouri State University senior Chris Millentree, who also cleared 6-10.75 on his second attempt. Western State (Calif.) University sophomore Oliver Harsanyi won the event with a height of 7-feet, 2.25-inches.
Thomas finished second in heat three, but just missed out on qualifying for tomorrow's final in the 110-meter hurdles. (PHOTO BY Blake Wood) |
Thomas cleared each of his first two heights (6-7.5 and 6-9.5) on his first attempts, before missing on his first try at 6-10.75. After clearing that height on his next attempt, he missed all three tries for 6-11.75. Thomas has earned All-America honors for the high jump at all four NCAA Championships in his Stonehill career, with five total after also collecting the honors in the 60-meter hurdles at this year's indoor championships.
Thomas narrowly missed out on reaching tomorrow night's final in the 110-meter high hurdles with his time of 14.33-seconds – just 0.01 seconds shy of his own school record and qualifying time for this year's NCAA Championships. He placed second in a wild heat three in which just three of the six competitors finished in the lead pack as two runners failed to finish and his time was the tenth fastest qualifying time overall – 0.07-seconds shy of the final at-large qualification spot. Johnson C. Smith junior Andre Collins posted the fastest qualifying time tonight at 14.03.
On Thursday night, senior All-American Patrick Fullerton (Bradford, Mass./Haverhill) got Stonehill's weekend started by qualifying for the finals of the 1500-meter run tomorrow night at 9:15 p.m. (EST). Fullerton earned one of the four automatic qualification spots with his third place finish in heat one with a time of 3:57.09. His time is the tenth-fastest qualifying time overall out of the 12 that will race in Saturday's final, but nearly ten seconds off his own school-record and personal best time of 3:47.34 that had him seeded fifth for the Championships. Fullerton reached the 1500-meter final in 2010 as well, posting a 12th place finish, and is seeking his first individual All-America honor after being part of Stonehill's 4000-meter distance medley relay team that placed seventh at the NCAA Indoor Championships earlier this year.
Tomorrow's live video webcast from the Championships via www.ncaa.com will start at 8 p.m. (EST). Links to the webcast and live results are also available via www.stonehillskyhawks.com.
