NEW ORLEANS, La. – The Moravian College men's and women's indoor track and field teams appear in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division III Preseason National Team Computer Rankings released on Wednesday.
The men's team is ranked No. 23 in the nation with 35.76 points, while the women come in at No. 40 with 21.22 points. The USTFCCCA ranks each active member based on potential national-championship strength using an algorithm specific to the division, sport and time of year. Officially listed NCAA season bests are used for calculation, and, in early weeks, data from previous seasons may be used.
"We always stress to athletes starting with our recruiting process that one of the main objectives of this program is to succeed at NCAA's," said third-year head coach Jesse Baumann. "This is just a preliminary ranking, so we have to be careful that we don't read too much into it, but it does illustrate that our message to recruits and athletes isn't just lip service. We do have some very talented athletes that collectively could excel on the NCAA stage."
The Greyhounds already began the 2013-14 indoor season with a successful opening meet on Dec. 6-7 at Fast Times Before Finals at Lehigh University. Seven student-athletes booked a trip to the ECAC meet in March with automatic qualifying marks, including senior David Cariello, who broke the school record with 4,725 points in the heptathlon.
Baumann, however, will not rest easy until his Hounds reach their full potential.
"I know the coaches certainly will not be satisfied," Baumann said. "Even if you win an event you can try to throw and jump farther, or run faster. Although a high ranking is nice, we certainly won't become complacent because of it."
The Moravian men have been selected to win its fifth straight Landmark Conference indoor title and sixth overall in the 2013-14 coaches' preseason poll. The Greyhounds return an All-American jumper in senior Kristopher Joint, who has already qualified for ECAC's in the triple jump with a first-place leap of 14.82 (48' 7.5") at Lehigh in December.
The women's squad enters 2014 with justifiably high expectations as the vast majority of the roster that won the Greyhounds' sixth consecutive Landmark Conference indoor championship one year ago returns to campus. Sophomore Christelle Reglas had Moravian's top finish at Lehigh in December with a runner-up showing in the long jump with an ECAC-qualifying mark of 5.30 meters (17', 4.75"). Junior Morgan Redmond was eighth in the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles in an ECAC-qualifying time of 9.40 seconds, while junior Brianna Wright took 10th in the 60-meter dash preliminaries with an ECAC-qualifying time of 8.08 seconds.
The NCAA Division III will invite the top 15 men and top 17 women in a particular event at the end of the season on the Track & Field Results Reports System (TFRRS) to the national championships on March 14-15 in Lincoln, Neb. Currently, two Moravian women and four men qualify for nationals on the TFRRS list, with Joint leading the country in the triple jump and Cariello qualifying in both the heptathlon and long jump events. Sophomore pole vaulter Ryan Karnopp and sophomore long jumper Albert Myers also have NCAA-qualifying marks as of Jan. 17.
Reglas and freshman Lauren Suelke (triple jump) currently reside in the top 17 for the women.
