NEW ORLEANS, La. --- The Moravian College men's and women's track & field teams had seven student-athletes named as United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Region honorees Monday.
The USTFCCCA is in its fifth year named All-Region selections for indoor and outdoor track & field at the NCAA Division III level after having All-Region honors in cross country for a number of years. For a student-athlete to earn All-Region honors, an athlete must be ranked in the top-5 of an individual event in the region according to the final Track & Field Results Reporting System data or be part of a top-3 relay team. Moravian is part of the Mideast Region.
"Among the things we often discuss with our team is that we don't want to solely be competitive at our conference level," stated Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "We want to be able to excel at our regional meet, and ultimately get people to NCAAs to compete for All American honors. Clearly when we have athletes finish in the top 5 in the region it's gratifying since this is among the goals we have for our program."
The Moravian women's team had five student-athletes earn eight All-Region honors led by senior Carly Danoski, who was All-Region in three events. Danoski was second in the region in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:15.53 on February 1 at the Ithaca College Bomber Invitational, and she was also second in the region in the mile run with a school record time of 4:54.78 that is converted to 4:57.70 due to being run on a banked track for NCAA qualifying in the Fastrack National Invitational on Friday, February 14. Danoski is seeded fifth in the nation in the mile and will run in the preliminaries of the event at the 2020 NCAA Division III National Championships on Friday, March 13 at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Danoski also ran a leg of the 4x400-meter relay team with sophomore Ally Lambert and freshmen Shannon Connelly and Crystal Robinson as the quartet earned All-Region honors with the third-best time in the region at 4:03.84 from March 7 at the All-Atlantic Region Indoor Championships. Robinson also earned All-Region honors in the 200-meter dash for the fourth-best time in the region of 26.05 seconds that she ran in her first collegiate race on December 6 at the Lehigh Fast Times Before Finals. Sophomore Amanda Crooks has the top time in the region in the 60-meter dash at 7.65 seconds run on March 8 at the AARTF Championships, and Crooks will compete in the NCAA Division III Championship preliminaries in the event on March 13 with the seventh-best time in the nation this winter.
"With the women, we had a number of athletes have a great season," noted Baumann. "We were extremely happy with how our 4x400 competed at the AARTFC meet and they were clipping at the heels of our school record. We're hoping they can run 3:55 or faster outdoors. Then a lot of the other athletes recognized were familiar names from the season with Carly earning numerous Landmark Athlete of the Week honors, and Amanda and Crystal both earning major awards at our conference meet. We're blessed to have a lot of very talented athletes for both genders as the All-Region team reflects, and we hope to have an even larger showing when we wrap up the outdoor season in May."
The Greyhound men had two honorees with senior Ryan Harper in the weight throw and junior Shane Mastro in the shot put. Harper had fifth-best throw in the region with a toss of 15.98 meters (52-2.5) at the Landmark Conference Championships on February 29 while Mastro was fifth with a distance of 14.95 meters (49-0.75) at the Kutztown University Last Chance Qualifier on February 21.
"On the men's side, Shane and Ryan were invaluable anchors for our team this year scoring huge points for us at the conference meet and ultimately moving on to the AARTFC regional meet," Baumann said. "With both of them we honestly expect them to be even more successful as we segue into the outdoor season."
To view the entire USTFCCCA All-Region honoree list, visit http://www.ustfccca.org/2020/03/featured/2020-ncaa-division-iii-indoor-track-field-all-region.
