Skyhawks relay edged in photo finish at season-opening UMass Boston Invitational 

EASTON, Mass. (December 13, 2013) – The Stonehill College men's 4x400-meter relay team has been named the Northeast-10 Conference's Relay of the Week for men's track and field the league office has announced.

Stonehill's 4x400 relay team placed second at its season-opening University of Massachusetts Boston Invitational, hosted by the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center, on Saturday in a photo finish with its time of 3:26.858 – just 0.004 behind Bridgewater State University. Senior Tyler Moules (Billerica, Mass./Billerica) ran the lead leg in 62.5-seconds, followed by freshman Matt Baldasare (Mansfield, Mass./Mansfield) who ran the second leg in 50.5-seconds, while junior All-American Nick Staley (Medway, Mass./BC High) rank the third leg in 53.5-seconds and junior Robert Smith (Woburn, Mass./Woburn Memorial) completed the anchor leg in 58.6. Baldasare's unofficial 400-meter split time would have been about three quarters of a second off the NCAA provisional qualifying standard if run under official timing circumstances.

Moules, the reigning NE-10 500-meter dash champion, is part of his first Relay of the Week team, as well as Baldasare following his collegiate debut weekend. Staley, who earned All-America honors for the indoor high jump at the 2013 NCAA Division II Championships with a fifth place finish last March, also collects Relay of the Week honors for the first time. Smith rounds out the first time weekly award winners as part of a relay team.

Stonehill is off until after the semester break when it returns to action on Saturday, January 18, when it competes at the University of Rhode Island Sorlien Invitational at Mackal Fieldhouse in Kingston, R.I., at 11 a.m.

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