Thomas Captures Second All-America Honor of Weekend

Thomas earned All-America honors in the 60-meter hurdles for the first time in his career tonight with a fifth-place finish in the final. (PHOTO BY Blake Wood)

Brookline, Mass., native follows up high jump national championship with fifth place finish in 60-meter hurdles final tonight

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (March 12, 2011) – Stonehill College sophomore All-American Corey Thomas (Brookline, Mass./BC High) followed up his National Championship in the high jump last night by capturing All-America honors for the first time in the 60-meter high hurdles on day two of the 2011 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, hosted by Adams State College and the Albuquerque Convention and Visitor's Bureau, at the Albuquerque Convention Center tonight.

Thomas, who qualified for the 60-meter hurdles final for the first time, placed fifth with a school-record time of 8.08-seconds. He broke his own school record set last night in the preliminary round when he qualified seventh for the final in 8.09-seconds, good for third in his heat. Grand Canyon University junior Tyler Sipes won the national championship in 7.75-seconds.

Thomas, who has now collected four All-America honors in his still brief collegiate career, captured the program's first national championship last night in the high jump as he cleared 7-feet, 0.5-inches on his second attempt. It marks the fourth ever national championship in Stonehill history as Thomas joins the women's lacrosse program who won a pair of national titles in 2003 and 2005 and equestrian's IHSA title in 2003.

Thomas won the high jump national championship on Friday night and led the Skyhawks to a program-best 16th place team finish. (PHOTO BY Richard Orr)

Thomas, the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Region Field Athlete of the Year for the second-straight year, has earned three All-America honors in the high jump to go with his first All-America performance in the hurdles this year. He failed to qualify for the finals last year, finishing 11^th in the prelims.

Stonehill also earned All-America honors in its third entry at the NCAA Championships, with the 4000-meter distance medley relay team collecting the honors for the fifth time in the past six years last night. The Skyhawks finished seventh with a time of 10:12.85. Running for Stonehill were seniors Daniel Pilz (Newington, Conn./Newington), who earns All-America honors for the second time in his career for this event (2009), Patrick Fullerton (Bradford, Mass./Haverhill) and Nathan Morse (Whitinsville, Mass./Holy Name) and sophomore Sean Hanlon (Georgetown, Mass./St. John's Prep).

Pilz ran the opening 1200-meter leg in 3:04.94, before Morse ran the 400-meter leg in 49.97-seconds, Hanlon ran the 800-meter stretch in 1:55.76 and Fullerton finished the anchor mile leg in 4:22.20.

Stonehill, ranked 18^th in this week's USTFCCCA Division II national ratings index, finished in a program-best 16^th place in the team standings with 16 points. Abilene Christian University won the team title with 49.00 points. The Skyhawks led the way among East Region teams that have scored at the event, with American International College and Southern Connecticut State University tied for 24^th (9.00).