CLAREMONT, Calif. --- Senior Nicco Dalpiaz of the Moravian College men's outdoor track & field team placed 12th of 20 competitors after the two-day decathlon at the 2012 NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championships being hosted by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges Thursday through Saturday.

Dalpiaz scored a career high 6,512 points in the decathlon with 3,116 points on Friday in the final five events after being in 11th place with 3,396 points on the opening day.  Dalpiaz missed All-American honors by 88 points  Ethan Miller from Central (Iowa) College won the event with 7,017.

Dalpiaz opened the second day of the event with a career best time of 15.13 seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles to earn 834 points, and he picked up another 393 points with a distance of 26.33 meters (86 feet, four inches) in the discus.  Dalpaiz then scored 790 points with a height of 4.60 meters (15 feet, one inch) in the pole vault before picking up 495 points in the javelin with a career best toss of 42.95 meters (140 feet, 11 inches).  Dalpiaz finished the second day of competition with a time of 4:50.78 in the 1,500-meter run to earn 614 points as he completed the third decathlon of his career, all since April 12 this spring.

The final day of the 2012 NCAA Division III National Championships begin at 3:30 p.m. EDT Saturday.  Moravian has five student-athletes scheduled to compete, three males and two females, on Saturday with seniors Gary Zack and Abby Schaffer looking to defend their national titles in the men's javelin and women's pole vault.

Photo courtesy of Lenny Reich, Assistant to the Athletic Director for Communications & Marketing at the University of Mount Union.