Kirkpatrick |
Baldasare |
Cooney |
Zawalich |
Skyhawks run to second place finish at BU's Valentine Invitational
BOSTON, Mass. (February 7, 2014) – Stonehill College's men's 4000-meter distance medley relay fired off one of the top times in the country at the NCAA Division II level to date while competing on day one of the David Hemery Valentine Invitational, hosted by Boston University, at the BU Track & Tennis Center this afternoon.
Stonehill placed second out of 21 teams competing in the men's distance medley relay with a season-best time of 9:53.64 – just 0.19-seconds behind first place Bates University (9:53.45). The Skyhawks led four Northeast-10 DMR teams in the event with Adelphi University finishing seventh (10:00.21), Southern Connecticut State University running 12th (10:18.35) and Bentley University 14th (10:19.09). Stonehill's time is just over three seconds shy of the school record (9:50.33) and after an eight second conversion for the banked track at BU, provisionally qualifies the Skyhawks for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Winston-Salem, N.C., next month and will rank right around third nationally in Division II to date once converted.
Running the event this afternoon for Stonehill was sophomore Nick Kirkpatrick (Carmel, Ind./Brebeuf Jesuit Prep) who ran the opening 1200-meter leg in 3:01.3, before handing off to freshman Matt Baldasare (Mansfield, Mass./Mansfield) for a 49.3-second split on the 400-meter leg, with junior All-American Patrick Cooney (Douglaston, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy) completing the 800-meter leg in 1:52.2 and then junior All-American Daniel Zawalich (Paxton, Mass./St. John's of Shrewsbury) completing the one mile anchor leg in 4:10.9. Baldasare, Cooney and Zawalich's splits would all have been fast enough to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Championships if run under official timing. Cooney and Zawalich both ran for the men's DMR that placed sixth at the 2012 NCAA Championships to earn All-America honors.
Stonehill, ranked third in this week's U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Regional computer rankings, will be right back at BU tomorrow for the remaining men's events on day two of the Valentine Invitational starting at 9 a.m.
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