Men's Track Leads After First Day at PSAC Indoor Championships, Helfrick, Reider Winners
Feb. 25, 2006
EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. - The Shippensburg University men's track and field team is currently first-place after the first day of competition at the 2006 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Indoor Track and Field Championships hosted by East Stroudsburg University on Saturday.
The defending champion Red Raiders have a total of 47 points, five ahead of second-place Lock Haven University (42) and 12 ahead of Kutztown University who is in third-place (35).
Junior Nathan Reider (York, Pa./Dallastown) won the title in the weight throw with a mark of 55-feet, 3 1/2-inches which set a new meet record, shattering the old one by more than two feet, and provisionally qualified him for the NCAA championships.
Reider's performance was also nearly five feet farther than freshman teammate David Green (Waynesboro, Pa./Waynesboro) who took second-place with a throw of 50-feet, 10-inches.
Senior Dan Helfrick (Greencastle, Pa./James Buchanan) also won an individual championship in the 5,000-meter run, ending Lock Haven's Aaron Benson's two-year reign as the conference champion. Helfrick entered the event with the 24th-best time this season of 15:56.00 set at the Bison Open on January 27.
However, Helfrick posted an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 14:52.98 on Saturday to capture his first career individual indoor championship. In 2005, he won both the 5,000 and 10,000-meter run at the PSAC outdoor championships.
Sophomore Jamal James (Harrisburg, Pa./Central Dauphin) started things off for Shippensburg by posting the top time in the 200-meter dash preliminaries with a time of 22.23 seconds to tie both the meet and Koehler Fieldhouse record. He finished 0.20 seconds ahead of Bradley Rager of California University (Pa.) and 0.28 ahead of freshman teammate Sean Cohick (Lansdale, Pa./North Penn).
James also finished second in the prelims of the 55-meter dash with a mark of 6.45 seconds, a shade under his previous season-best time of 6.47 seconds set on February 17 at the Susquehanna Open. Freshman James Wilson (Ephrata, Pa./Ephrata) was fourth and Cohick qualified in eighth-place.
In the long jump, Cohick also placed eighth in the finals with a leap of 22-feet, 4 3/4-inches while the men's 4,000-meter distance medley relay team of senior Richard Hanslovan (Morrisdale, Pa./West Branch), senior John Somers (Stroudsburg, Pa./Stroudsburg), freshman Jonathan Hughes (Malvern, Pa./Great Valley) and senior Steve Huffman (Montoursville, Pa./Montoursville) provisionally qualified for the NCAA championships with a time of 10:13.36 to finish second.
Competition in this year's PSAC Indoor Track and Field Championship continues on Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
- Red Raider Track and Field -
