EMAIL THIS PAGE

American Track Team Prepares for Patriot League Championships
Eagles Look to Bring Home Gold at Army This Weekend

February 14, 2002

WASHINGTON — American University's men's and women's indoor track teams compete in their first indoor Patriot League Championships this Saturday and Sunday at Army.

American is poised to do well in the competition, with a number of individuals at or near the top of the Top-15 performance list in the league. Army is the defending champion for the men while Navy holds the women's crown.

Junior Samia Akbar, who was named the ECAC Track Player of the Week for December 12, leads the league in the 5,000-meters with her time of 17:20.14. Akbar also is second in the mile at 4:59.37 and she holds the school record in both events. Sophomore Jen Baclawski is ninth in the 3,000-meters and 12th in the 5,000-meters. Classmate Jessica Daniel is 14th in the 5,000-meters as well. Freshman Megan Simpson is ranked tenth in the 1,000-meters and 12th in the 800-meters.

For the men, junior Sean O'Brien is currently 11th in the nation in the mile and leads the league with his time of 4:02.00. O'Brien was named the ECAC Track Player of the Week for February 13. He also leads the league in the 800-meters with a time of 1:53.45 as well as being ranked sixth in the 1,000-meters (2:29.79). Junior Andy Ellerhorst is ranked fifth in the 500-meters with his mark of 1:06.00. Classmate Jovens Colas is in the ninth spot in the 1,000 meters at 2:30.97.

Freshman Sean Duffy is fifth in the mile (4:09.61) and 13th in the 1,000-meters (2:31.70). In the distance events, sophomore Matt Seymour is fifth in the 3,000 meters (8:22.89) and is also ninth in the mile. In the 5,000-meters, American holds the seventh and eighth positions with freshman Patrick MacAdie and sophomore Frank Malpigli. In addition, the Eagles hold the third position in the Distance Medley Relay, the fifth in the 4x800-meters and the tenth in the 4x400-meters.

The Patriot League Championships look to have a number of exciting events. The women's 3,000-meters has the top-10 runners within 25 seconds of each other. On the men's side, the distance events look to be the marquee events of the meet. The men's mile features O'Brien and Army's All-American Clay Schwabe. The event has five runners under 4:10 and the top-15 are faster than 4:18. The 3,000-meters also looks to be exciting with eight runners under 8:30, including Seymour. The 5,000-meters has six runners under 15 minutes.

The competition gets underway at West Point on Saturday with the 55-meter hurdles and concludes on Sunday with the 4x400-meter relay.