Men's Track Opens Up A-10 Championships at Home Saturday

University of Massachusetts Men's Track and Field Notes
Meet Seven	Atlantic 10 Championship
Date \| Time	Saturday, May 6, 2017 – Sunday, May 7, 2017 - 9:30 a.m./9 a.m. - Schedule of Events
Location	Amherst, Mass. (UMass Track and Field Complex)
Teams Competing	Davidson, Duquesne, Fordham, George Mason, La Salle, Rhode Island, Saint Joseph's, Saint Louis, VCU
Results	Live Results

This Weekend's Competition
- The UMass men's track and field program is geared up for the Atlantic 10 Championship, hosted this weekend at the squad's own UMass Track and Field Complex in Amherst. Action will open with the 10,000 meter run on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and on Sunday at 9 a.m. with the decathlon 110 meter hurdles.
- The following Minutemen are ranked in the top-eight on the Atlantic 10 performance lists heading into this weekend's championship meet: Kris Horn (1^st decathlon; 2^nd, long jump; 6^th, high jump; 7^th javelin), Paolo Tavares (1^st, 3,000m steeplechase), Brian Gendron (2^nd, 800m), Brett Davies (2^nd, discus; 5^th, shot put), John Long (3^rd, javelin), Cole Acoveno (4^th, high jump), Blake Croteau (5^th, 10,000m), Jake DeGrace (5^th, 110h), Mason Lord (5^th, pole vault), Evan Burton (6th, discus; 7^th hammer throw), Andrew Hanwell (7^th, 200m), Zachary Frahlich (7^th, 1,500m) and John Chuma (8^th, pole vault).

Last Time Out
- University of Massachusetts men's track and field captured second in a field of seven at its own UMass Pre-Conference Meet at the UMass Track & Field Complex with 144.25 points.
- Senior Kris Horn's leap of 23 feet, 11 inches earned him the top spot in long jump with the third-best jump in program history.
- Sophomore Andrew Hanwell won the 200 meter dash in 21.84 seconds. Freshman Dawson Bathgate ran 9 minutes, 49.38 seconds to second place in the 3,000m steeplechase
- Junior John Chuma cleared 14 feet, 11 inches in pole vault to take second.

Welcome Back
- The University of Massachusetts men's track and field program entered the 2017 season with nearly 40 returning veterans, including many key contributors from a successful 2016 campaign.
- The outdoor roster includes nine individuals who scored points for the Minutemen at the 2016 Outdoor Atlantic 10 Championships, led by redshirt senior Kris Horn who won gold in decathlon last season with an A-10 record 7,061 points and took sixth in pole vault and eighth in javelin. Jonathan Collins scored in the event, as well taking sixth. John Chuma was a silver medalist at A-10's in pole vault as a sophomore last spring and Paolo Tavares earned bronze in 3,000m steeplechase. Current junior Evan Burton was fourth in discus at A-10's in 2016, Blake Croteau took fifth in the 10,000m run and Brett Davies, Cole Acoveno and Deion Arneaud were eighth in shot put, high jump and long jump, respectively.

New Additions
- University of Massachusetts' men's track and field/cross country programs and head coach Ken O'Brien welcomed 18 newcomers to the squads for the 2016-17 seasons. The incoming group includes 16 freshmen and one transfer with 11 hailing from Massachusetts, two from New York and one apiece from Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
-The new additions include: Jack Adamski, Dawson Bathgate, Michael Cuthbert, Erik Engstrom, Jacob Gore, Hayden Gray, Hunter Gray, Michael Hunter, Noah Kortkamp, Michael McDonald, Nathan Narcisse, Zach Rolfe, Nicholas Santos, Kevin Shannon, Jackson Southard and Kendall Westhoff.
- Hunter Gray, Jacob Gore, Michael Hunter, Mason Lord, Nathan Narcisse, Zach Rolfe, Nicholas Santos, Kevin Shannon and Jackson Southard are all on the Minutemen's roster for the 2017 outdoor track and field season.

Up Next
-The members of the Minutemen who have set qualifying marks will next travel to the IC4A Championships on May 13-14 in Princeton, New Jersey.

Coach O'Brien At The Helm
- Ken O'Brien is in his 50th year as head coach of the UMass men's track and field and cross country programs. He is just the fourth head coach of track and field in the school's 112-year history of the sport that dates back to 1897.
- In O'Brien's 50 seasons coaching cross country and track and field at UMass, the Minutemen have won 19 conference titles (Yankee, Atlantic 10 and Eastern), four New England crowns, two IC4A titles and have had seven All-America performers.
-In 1999, O'Brien was named NCAA District 1 Track and Field Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season, and the fourth time he has won the award in track and field.
- O'Brien was inducted in to the UMass Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 30, 2016 with the Hall of Fame Class of 2016.

Scoreboard

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Cole Acoveno

Jack Adamski

Deion Arneaud

Dawson Bathgate

Evan Burton

Jonathan Collins

Blake Croteau

Michael Cuthbert

Brett Davies

Jake DeGrace

Erik Engstrom

Zachary Frahlich

Brian Gendron

Jacob Gore

Hayden Gray

Hunter Gray

Andrew Hanwell

Kris Horn

Michael Hunter

Noah Kortkamp

John Long

Mason Lord

Michael McDonald

Nathan Narcisse

Zach Rolfe

Nicholas Santos

Kevin Shannon

Jackson Southard

Paolo Tavares

Kendall Westhoff

Scoreboard

University of Massachusets Athletics