Connolly earned the first two All-New England honors of his career today for the 200m dash and 4x100m relay. (PHOTO BY Mark Connolly) |
Skyhawks finish weekend with four All-New England honors
HANOVER, N.H. (May 12, 2018) – The Stonehill College men's track and field program, ranked No. 3 in this week's U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division II East Region rankings, wrapped up its season with three more All-New England performances on day two of the 2018 New England Outdoor Track & Field Championships, hosted by Dartmouth College, at Memorial Field today.
Junior Joe Connolly (Wilmington, Massachusetts/Austin Prep) led Stonehill today with a pair of All-New England performances, the first of his career, first anchoring the Skyhawks 4x100-meter relay to a seventh place finish in 42.31-seconds. Also earning All-New England honors for their efforts on the relay were freshman Desmond Bernal (Warwick, Rhode Island/Bishop Hendricken) on the lead leg, followed by sophomore Justin Ireland (Norton, Massachusetts/Norton) and then senior All-American Joshua Hubbell (Gloucester, Massachusetts/St. John's Prep), before Connolly completed the anchor.
Connolly followed the relay up with an eighth place finish in the 200-meter dash in 22.28-seconds. He had qualified in fifth overall with the quickest second place finish in Friday's preliminary heats at 21.84-seconds. Hubbell earns All-New England honors for the fourth time in his career, all as part of relays, with his first in the 4x100 to go with three All-New England performances as part of 4x400-meter relays, while Bernal picked up his second All-New England award of his freshman season and Ireland earns All-New England honors for the first time.
Stonehill's 4x800-meter relay turned in the top finish for the Skyhawks this weekend at fifth place this afternoon in 7:43.30. Earning All-New England honors for their efforts were junior All-Americans Stephen Vercollone (Pembroke, Massachusetts/Pembroke) and Lucas Taxter (Readville, Massachusetts/Xaverian Brothers), along with classmate David Lockhart (Stoughton, Massachusetts/Stoughton) and freshman Christopher Lanahan (Mendham, New Jersey/West Morris Mendham). Vercollone ran the lead leg, followed by Taxter and Lanahan, with Lockhart running the anchor leg.
Vercollone, who picked up All-New England honors for the third time this season and eighth of his career as a member of the relay, fell less than a quarter of a second shy of a second All-New England performance for the afternoon, placing 11th in the 800-meter run in 1:52.48 as seventh through 13th place were separated by just 0.87-seconds. Taxter placed 14th in 1:53.12 after collecting All-New England honors for the third time this year and fourth of his career, while Lockhart earned All-New England accolades for the second time this year and sixth for his career and Lanahan his first.
Lockhart earned All-New England honors for the seventh time in his career as part of the 4x800m relay that placed fifth. (PHOTO BY Mark Connolly) |
Stonehill finished the two-day championship with nine points to place 25th in the team standings. NE10 rival Southern Connecticut State University won the team championship with 113.50 points, followed by the University of Massachusetts in second with 71 points and the University of New Hampshire in third with 53.
Junior Xavier Young (Barnegat, New Jersey/Barnegat) placed 11th out of 20 throwers in the shot put with a distance of 47-feet, 4.50-inches on his second attempt. Classmates Riley Dowd (Peabody, Massachusetts/Peabody Veteran's Memorial) and Alexander Demeule (Merrimac, Massachusetts/Pentucket Regional) finished 16th and 19th, respectively, out of 29 entries in the 1500-meter run. Dowd posted a season-best time of 3:55.01, while All-American Demeule clocked in at a season-low 3:55.60.
Senior Anthony Innamorati (Clinton, Massachusetts/Clinton) rounded out Stonehill's four All-New England performances this weekend, earning the honors for the third straight year for the outdoor pole vault on Friday. He placed seventh by clearing a height of 14-feet, 11-inches.
Stonehill sees its 2017-18 track & field season come to a close having posted 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, Hubbell, Taxter and Vercollone, earned All-America honors with a fifth place finish at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, while Vercollone (800m) and Taxter (one mile run) both were individual provisional qualifiers indoors and Taxter provisionally qualified for the 800m outdoor, with a current national rank of 37th.
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