2017 Peach Belt Men’ s Track & Field

Elite 15 Award Presented by EAB Tyler McCabe, Florida Tech

Coach of the Year Dr. Peter Ormsby, UNC Pembroke

Track Athlete of the Year Silus Kipkoech, UNC Pembroke

Field Athlete of the Year Stefan Matula, Nova Southeastern

Freshman Track Athlete of the Year Silus Kipkoech, UNC Pembroke

Freshman Field Athlete of the Year Nate Blackmon, Columbus State

as well at 5:20 p. m. Competing against a field of mostly upperclassmen, Florida Tech’ s Ondrej Rapp and Joshua Norville performed admirably at DII’ s biggest stage. For Rapp, in particular, his performance has put him in a category all by himself, as he became the first All-American in the history of the Florida Tech men’ s track & field program.

Rapp opened the long jump competition with a foul in his first attempt. However, he bounced back with a distance of 7.45m in his second attempt, which eventually clinched him a seventh place result in the final and All-American honors.

Norville just missed on his first two attempts, recording a pair of fouls, before posting a leap of 7.03m to finish 12th overall in the competition.

NCAA Track & Field – Day Two

BRADENTON, FLA – Friday was all about the hurdles for PBC student-athletes at the NCAA Track & Field Championships. In the men’ s 110 hurdles, Nova Southeastern’ s Rohan Mullings and UNC Pembroke’ s Christian Ceccato competed.

Mullings competed in the third heat of the 110m hurdles for Nova Southeastern. Despite a valiant effort against some of the fastest runners in the country, Mullings was unable to qualify for the final tomorrow, running the event in 14.53s. The Royal Palm Beach, Florida native concludes his career at NSU as a national qualifier, PBC Champion and school record holder in the aforementioned event.

UNCP sophomore Christian Ceccato crossed in a time of 14.70 seconds on the way to a 17th place finish in the 110-meter hurdles. Ceccato, who registered a pair of NCAA provisional qualifying times

over the last three days, was the seventh UNCP student-athlete in the last nine years selected to participate in NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field’ s premier event. Ceccato is the program’ s first representative selected to compete in a hurdles event in 34 years.

NCAA Track & Field – Day Three

BRADENTON, FLA – The PBC crowned two more All-Americans as the 2017 NCAA Track & Field national championships came to a close on Saturday. Nova Southeastern’ s Sharkira Bartley finished third in the triple jump while Columbus State’ s Xavier Matthews finished sixth in the 100 meter dash. The PBC finishes the event with three All-Americans.

The last of eight to qualify for the finals, Matthews crossed the line in a time of 10.54 seconds for sixth place overall.

Matthews becomes the first men’ s track & field All-American in Columbus State history.

The Cougar 4x100 relay team had a disappointing Saturday night, mishandling an exchange in the finals. The Cougars still finished as one of the top eight teams in the country.

This national championship appearance marked the first for the CSU track & field program since 2012 and first for the men since 2010.

2017 PBC Men’ s Track & Field All-Region Selections

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