Dixon |
Staley |
Cooney |
Zawalich |
Kirkpatrick |
Baldasare |
Staley will compete in second-straight indoor championship for high jump
Dixon earns first NCAA Championships appearance for 60-meter hurdles
DMR returns for sixth time in eight years
NCAA Indoor Championships Host Site
EASTON, Mass. (March 5, 2014) – The Stonehill College men's track & field team will have entries in three events at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, at JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C., Friday and Saturday, March 14-15, the NCAA announced on Wednesday.
Junior All-American Nick Staley (Medway, Mass./BC High) earned his second-straight appearance at the NCAA Indoor Championships and fifth trip to the NCAA Championships overall for the high jump. Senior captain Xavier Dixon (New Bedford, Mass./New Bedford) will make his first NCAA Championships appearance by qualifying for the 60-meter high hurdles, while the Stonehill men's 4000-meter distance relay team returns for the sixth time in the last eight years after a one year absence.
Staley, who earned All-America honors for the first time with a fifth place finish at the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championship by clearing 6-feet, 10.75-inches, qualified with his leap of 6-11.50-inches to win his second-straight New England Indoor Championship on Saturday. He will enter the NCAA Championships ranked 10th nationally for the high jump.
Dixon, who earned indoor All-New England honors for the second time in his career over the weekend, qualified by way of his career-best time of 8.00-seconds to win the Northeast-10 Championship for the first time two weeks ago. The time will have Dixon seeded 13th for the NCAA Championships.
Stonehill's distance medley relay team of junior All-Americans Patrick Cooney (Douglaston, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy) and Daniel Zawalich (Paxton, Mass./St. John's of Shrewsbury), sophomore Nick Kirkpatrick (Carmel, Ind./Brebeuf Jesuit Prep) and freshman Matt Baldasare (Mansfield, Mass./Mansfield) will seek the program's sixth All-America performance in the event over the last eight years next weekend. Cooney and Zawalich were both members of the 2012 DMR that earned All-America honors with a sixth place finish at the NCAA Championships in 10:04.69. Kirkpatrick and Baldasare will be making their first trips to the NCAA Championships. The relay team is ranked 12th among the entries next weekend with its time of 10:01.72 converted of a time of 9:53.64 for a second place finish at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational, hosted by Boston University, on February 7.
The NCAA Championships get underway on Friday, March 14, with Dixon running the 60-meter hurdles prelims at 5:05 p.m., followed by the men's distance medley relay final at 7 p.m. Staley will compete in the men's high jump final on Saturday, March 15, at 4:55 p.m., with Dixon running the 60-meter hurdles final, if he qualifies in the top eight on Friday, at 5:25 p.m.
Stonehill, ranked second in this week's U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Region computer rankings, produced a program-best matching fifth place team finish at the New England Championships over the weekend after placing second at the NE-10 Indoor Championships the week before, marking the Skyhawks fourth-straight finish in the top two.
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