Senior Patrick Fullerton closed out his collegiate career with All-America honors in the 1500-meter run tonight at the NCAA Championships. (PHOTO BY Blake Wood) |
Bradford, Mass., native closes out collegiate career with first individual All-America honor at NCAA Championships
Fullerton collects his first individual All-America honor with a sixth place finish in tonight's final with a time of 3:57.68. The 12 runners in the final were separated by just 3.95-seconds and Fullerton finished within 1.65-seconds of Adams State University junior Andrew Graham who won the event in 3:56.03.
Fullerton sat back in the pack before making a move that saw him take the lead heading into the final lap. He was able to create some separation on the backstretch, but the pack closed over the final 200-meters, pushing him back to sixth. Fullerton also earned All-America honors as part of Stonehill's 4000-meter distance medley relay team that finished seventh at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. He also improves on last year's 12th place finish in 1500 final at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Fullerton qualified for the finals with a third place finish in his preliminary heat on Thursday night in 3:57.09 – the tenth fastest time in the prelims. Stonehill finishes the Championships with 5.50 points with two student-athletes competing in three events and bringing home two All-America honors. The Skyhawks sit in 28th place through 12 of 21 events.
On Friday night, sophomore Corey Thomas (Brookline, Mass./BC High) earned the fourth All-America honor in the high jump of his career (fifth overall) when he placed sixth with a height of 6-feet, 10.75-inches. The reigning NCAA Division II indoor high jump national champion narrowly missed qualifying for the final in the 110-meter high hurdles as his time of 14.33 seconds in last night's prelims was 0.07 seconds off the qualifying pace and just 0.01 shy of his own school-record. Thomas posted the tenth-fastest time in the three preliminary heats, finishing second in his heat.
