College Outdoor Track and Field
Rider at IC4A/ECACs
Gonzalez All-East in the 1500 meter
Gonzalez, Wesh, Price Advance to NCAAs
PRINCETON--The Rider University men's and women's track and field teams competed Friday through Sunday at the IC4A/ECAC Championships hosted by Princeton.
On Sunday for the Rider men's team, junior Christian Gonzalez (Somerset/Franklin Twp.) earned All-East honors with a fourth place finish in the 1500 meter.
Gonzalez finished with a time of 3:50.46 and will represent Rider in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 27-29 at the NCAA 1st and 2nd round meet, hosted by North Carolina A&T State University.
"Christian did a good job," said head coach Bob Hamer. "There was one tactical spot that we talked about after the race that put him behind early but other than that one slight hesitation, he did well and I'm very happy for him. This was a great accomplishment. He is a competitor and wasn't happy to finish 10th in the preliminaries and went out and did something about it."
Gonzalez also earned All-East honors during the indoor track season in the mile.
For the Rider women, senior Alicia Price (Voorhees/Eastern) placed 12th in the shot put with a distance of 13.70m.
"Alicia was a little disappointed," said Hamer. "We were happy with her effort. To perform the way she did yesterday and battle today, coming off such a physical and emotional high was admirable."
Price earned All-East honors on Saturday in the hammer throw with a Rider record distance of 56.11m and will also represent the Broncs at NCAAs.
On Saturday for Rider at ECACs, freshman Ashley Hunter (Northampton, Pa.) placed 21st in the 400m hurdles (1:03.55).
Also for the Rider men at IC4As, freshman Greg Wesh (Horsham, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham) placed 10th in the 800m preliminaries with a Rider record time of 1:49.52, freshman David Hightower (Easton, Pa.) was 11th in the preliminaries of the 110m hurdles (14.48), sophomore Ron Moore (Nashville, Tenn./John Overton) finished 18th in the 400m hurdles (53.69) and senior Brandon Wolf (Lititz, Pa./Warwick) finished 31st in the hammer with a toss of 49.73m.
Wesh broke the 15-year old 800 meter record held by Marc McKithen (1:50.68) set in 1995 and will be the third Bronc to represent Rider at NCAAs.
The women's 4 x 400m relay of junior Shaylah Counts (Newark/Malcolm Shabazz), freshman Lauren Findley (Hallstead, Pa./Blue Ridge), freshman Erin McMullin (Philadelphia, Pa./Nazareth Academy) and Hunter was 19th (3:54.63).
The women's 4x100 relay of freshman Mia Riley (West Caldwell/James Caldwell), McMullin, Counts and Hunter was 21st with a time of 48.63.
The men's 4x100 relay of freshman James Burroughs (West Orange), freshman David Hightower (Easton, Pa.), sophomore Mike Bartoli (Millstone/Allentown) and freshman Daequan Kim (Bordentown) finished 22nd (42.15).
The men's 4 x 400 relay team of Moore, Hightower, Burroughs and Kim ran a season-best 3:16.37 to place 26th.
On Friday for the Rider women, junior Chelsea Callan (Hazlet/Raritan) set a Rider record in the 3000m steeplechase, placing 23rd overall with a time of 11:08.24, breaking her own record by over 11 seconds, set as a sophomore in 2009.
"This was a tremendous weekend," Hamer added. "We had two All-East performers and three Rider records. We have three athletes going to the East region for NCAAs. It was a great performance by the whole group."
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