Demeule |
Dowd |
Skyhawks earn Google Cloud cross country/track & field first team accolades from CoSIDA
Stonehill's All-Time Academic All-District Selections
EASTON, Mass. (May 29, 2018) – Two members of the Stonehill College men's cross country and track & field programs have earned a spot on the Google Cloud Academic All-District™ First Team for men's cross country and track & field, as selected by College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) members in Division II from the East Region, today.
Junior All-American Alex Demeule (Merrimac, Massachusetts/Pentucket Regional) and classmate Riley Dowd (Peabody, Massachusetts/Peabody Veteran's Memorial) were both selected to the Google Cloud Academic All-District™ I first team, marking the sixth straight year Stonehill has placed multiple student-athletes on CoSIDA's men's cross country/track & field first team. Demeule and Dowd give the men's cross country and track & field programs 22 Academic All-District™ honorees all-time and the duo are now eligible for Academic All-America® selection, as voted on by members of CoSIDA.
Demeule earns Google Cloud Academic All-District™ honors for the second-straight year. (PHOTO BY Mark Connolly) |
Demeule, who has earned a 3.81 cumulative grade point average as a finance major at Stonehill after recording a perfect 4.0 GPA for the recently completed spring semester, earns Academic All-District™ first team honors for the second-straight year. He is a three-time Northeast-10 Conference Academic All-Conference selection over his career and a member of Lambda Epsilon Sigma and Beta Gamma Sigma honor societies. Demeule has received the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Academic Award two-straight years as a member of the men's cross country program, earned Division II Athletic Director's Association (ADA) Academic Achievement Award and been named to the NE10 Commissioner's Honor Roll and Athletic Director's Honor Roll all six semesters to date.
Demeule earned USTFCCCA All-America honors for the first time in his career this winter by running the opening 1200-meter leg of Stonehill's 4000-meter distance medley relay team that finished fifth at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships in a school-record 9:49.12. He also helped lead the men's cross country program through an undefeated season leading into the NCAA Division II Championships, winning the program's first New England Championship, its ninth NE10 title and fourth NCAA East Regional championship to reach the NCAA Championships for the 15th-straight year.
Demeule is a three-time USTFCCCA All-East Region performer, collecting the honors twice for cross country, including a fourth place finish at the 2017 East Regional, as well as with the DMR this winter. He is also a three-time All-New England and All-NE10 performer. Demeule finished fifth at the NE10 Cross Country Championships and the DMR won the indoor title at the NE10 Championships. In addition to a pair of All-New England honors with the DMR, he earned the honors for the 1500-meter run at the 2017 Outdoor Championships.
Dowd, who has recorded a 3.82 cumulative GPA as an economics major at Stonehill, having also posted perfect 4.0 GPA for the spring semester, earns Academic All-District™ honors for the first time. He is also a three-time NE10 Academic All-Conference selection over his career, collecting USTFCCCA All-Academic honors twice and is a member of the Edwin H. Sutherland Criminology honor society and Omicron Delta Epsilon honor society. Dowd has earned a spot on the NE10 Commissioner's Honor Roll and Athletic Director's Honor Roll all six semesters at the College.
Dowd earns Academic All-District™ honors for the first time. (PHOTO BY Bob Blanchard) |
Dowd is a three-time USTFCCCA All-East Region performer for cross country, finishing tenth at both the 2016 and 2017 NCAA East Regional. He also helped lead Stonehill to an undefeated cross country season prior to nationals as the Skyhawks won the first New England Championship in program history as he posted an All-New England finish of ninth in the eight-kilometer race, won its ninth NE10 title and fourth NCAA East Regional championship to advance to the NCAA Championships for the 15th-straight year.
Dowd is a three-time All-New England performer overall, including a pair of honors as part of the indoor 4x800-meter relay in 2017 and 2018, and a two-time All-NE10 performer, including a second place finish as part of Stonehill's 4x800-meter relay at the 2018 NE10 Indoor Championships. He also turned in an 89th place finish at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in November – marking the Skyhawks third of four finishers in the top 100.
The Stonehill men's cross country and track & field programs enjoyed a strong 2017-18 season, led by the cross country program winning the New England, NE10 and NCAA East Regional Championships on its way to a 15th-straight trip to the NCAA Division II Championships. The track & field seasons were highlighted a pair of third place team finishes at the Northeast-10 Conference Indoor and Outdoor Championships, and placing sixth at the New England Indoor Championships, to go with its 25th place finish at the Outdoor Championships. The Skyhawks 4000-meter distance medley relay, which included Demeule, earned All-America honors with a fifth place finish at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, while juniors Stephen Vercollone (Pembroke, Massachusetts/Pembroke) (800m) and Lucas Taxter (Readville, Massachusetts/Xaverian) (one mile run) both were individual provisional qualifiers indoors and Taxter provisionally qualified for the 800m outdoors.
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