Three MAAC Athletes to Compete at NCAA Championships
MAAC Sports
Edison, NJ- Leonard
Korir and Alexander Soderberg of Iona College and Colin Quirke of Manhattan
College will compete at the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships
at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa from June 8-11.
Both Korir and Soderberg
advanced in the 10,000-meter run at the East Regionals at Indiana University. Korir, a junior from Iten, Kenya, was seventh
overall in the hotly contested race. His time of 29:10.58 was less than two
seconds behind the second place finisher and the sixth fastest time in Iona
history in the 10k. Soderberg, a junior from Saltsjöbaden, Sweden, was 11th in 29:18.45, an outdoor personal best and
also a top 10 time in school history. He topped his qualifying time by more
than 40 seconds.
Korir qualified for his
second NCAA Championship final of the weekend with the fifth fastest time in
the 5,000-meter run. Korir was fifth in the second heat of the semifinal event,
the faster of the two heats in the event. First through fifth place were
separated by just .62 seconds as he was a tenth of a second behind fourth place
William Mulherin from Virginia Tech with his time of 14:06.78. Liberty's Sam
Chelanga was the overall winner of the heat and the event at Regionals.
Quirke, a junior from Los
Gatos, Cal., qualified for the NCAA Championships with a seventh-place finish
in the discus throw at the NCAA East Regional. Quirke moved on to the National
Championships with a personal-best toss of 55.25 meters (181 feet, three
inches).
Participating in an NCAA regional meet for
the third straight year, Quirke entered the competition seeded 14th.
Needing to place in the top 12 to qualify for Nationals, he uncorked his
personal best throw, which was the second-best mark in program history, on his
third attempt to move into seventh. Quirke becomes the first Manhattan
athlete to advance to the NCAA Championships since Milan Jotanovic (shot
put) and Seid Mujanovic (hammer
throw) both qualified in 2009.