Bishop |
Curit |
Dixon |
Bishop, Curit and Dixon set to compete Thursday through Saturday
EASTON, Mass. (May 21, 2014) – The Stonehill College track and field program has three student-athletes getting set to compete at the 2014 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships, hosted by Grand Valley State University and the West Michigan Sports Commission, at the GVSU Track & Field Complex in Allendale, Michigan this weekend.
Seniors Chelsea Bishop (Suffield, Connecticut/Suffield) and Xavier Dixon (New Bedford, Massachusetts/New Bedford) as well as junior Maria Curit (Biddeford, Maine/Biddeford) will represent Stonehill at the event which opens on Thursday and runs through Saturday, May 24. Tickets for the event are $12 per day for adults and $8 for students and senior citizens. Weekend passes for all three days are available for $20 for adults and $12 for students and senior citizens. A free live video webcast and live results are available through ncaa.com with links also available through www.stonehillskyhawks.com.
Bishop, who earned All-America honors at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships in November, will open the weekend for Stonehill when she competes in the women's 10,000-meter run on Thursday night at 8:50 p.m. Bishop has qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships for the first time in her career and seeks her second All-America award of the year after collecting the honors in cross country in the fall. She is seeded 20th for the 10,000-meters with her personal-best and school-record time of 35:58.17 to win the Northeast-10 Conference Championship this season.
Curit and Dixon will both compete in preliminary heats on day two of the Championships on Friday. Curit will be up first in the 800-meter run prelims at 6:15 p.m., running in heat three after becoming the first Stonehill woman to become an NCAA automatic qualifier with her second place finish in the 800-meter run at the New England Championships, collecting All-New England honors, in a school-record 2:08.72 giving her the seventh-seed for Friday. She is also making her first trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, but qualified for the 2013 Indoor Championships in March for both the 400-meter dash and 4000-meter distance medley relay. The top two finishers of each of the three preliminary heats on Friday as well as the next three fastest times will qualify for Saturday's 800-meter final at 7:05 p.m.
Dixon's 110-meter high hurdles event will immediately follow the women's 800 prelims on Friday at 6:35 p.m. Dixon will run in the third of three heats and is seeded 11th with his personal-best time of 14.26-seconds in the preliminary heat for the NE-10 Championship which he went on to win for the second time in his career. He is also making his first NCAA Outdoor Championships appearance after qualifying for the 60-meter hurdles at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. The three heat winner plus the next five fastest runners on Friday will qualify for the 110-meter hurdles final on Saturday at 5:55 p.m.
The Stonehill women's track and field team captured both the Northeast-10 Conference indoor and outdoor championships this season, marking the first championships in program history, and is currently ranked first in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Regional computer rankings, having qualified seven for the NCAA Championships this season. The Stonehill men placed second at both the NE-10 indoor and outdoor championships this season and are currently ranked second in the region, also sending seven individuals to NCAA Championships this season overall.
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