Friday, April 15, 2011

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Kennesaw State holds the top spot with 60 points after the first day of the 2011 Atlantic Sun Conference Outdoor Men’s Track Championship. The Owls notched points in all five events and were led by a one-, two-finish in the 10,000-meter as Nabil Hamid and Jaakko Nieminen took the top-two spots.

Hamid recorded a time of 31:10.54 for a first-place finish while Nieminen finished just behind with a time of 31:13.17.

The Owls had a pair of second-place finishes in field events. Anjoun Armaly had a distance of 7.46m in the long jump. In the shot put, Joshua McNair threw 15.42m and followed that up with a third-place finish in the hammer throw with a mark of 51.02m.

ETSU is second after the opening day with 30 points. The Bucs picked up points in all five events with Jarrod Burton leading the way with a second-place finish in the hammer throw, hitting a distance of 51.68m.

Belmont’s Joe Frye claimed the top spot in both the shot put and hammer throw. The Bruins thrower recorded a distance of 16.01m in the shot put and followed that up with a 57.20m distance in the hammer. This is Frye’s third outdoor hammer title after winning in 2010 and 2008. Belmont sits in third place in the team standings with 30 points.

Diego Lawrence, from Campbell, picked up his second-consecutive long jump title with a facility record-setting distance of 7.69m. The previous record was 7.62m set in 2010 by Johnta Griffin.

In the pole vault, USC Upstate’s Justin Crawford took the crown with a height of 4.75m, tying the A-Sun record previously set in 2008 by Gardner-Webb’s Jeremy Longshore.

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Read the Atlantic Sun Insider Column: Emotional Day Capped By Record Setting Performance For Crawford

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After five events in the men’s decathlon, Belmont’s Matt Fiedler leads the eight-man field with a 3545 points total. Lipscomb’s Dillon Seigenthaler sits in second with 3387 points, while Brian Graham from Kennesaw State takes third with 3342.

Fiedler earned victories in the high jump and long jump, while also taking second in the 400-meter dash. His distance of 22’1.5 feet gave him the win in the second event of the day, while his height of 6’4.75 earned him his second first-place finish.

Graham took the 100m and 400m dashes with times of 11.17 and 49.99, while his teammate Adam Reed’s distance of 38’3.5 at the shot put gave him first.

The men’s decathlon 110m hurdles begins the final day of action at 9 a.m., while the final event of the day, 4x400m relay, wraps up at 8:40 p.m.

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