ESU Season Bests

PSAC Championship Site

EAST STROUDSBURG - East Stroudsburg University juniors Matt Gallup, Andrew McCloskey, Drew Miller, Rusty Smith and Paul Wagner all bring the top marks in their events into the 2009 PSAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which will be held this weekend at Millersville University.

Action gets underway on Thursday with the men's decathlon, women's heptathlon and the men's and women's 10,000m runs and continues with a full schedule on Friday and Saturday at Chryst Field at Biemesderfer Stadium.

Gallup (pole vault), Miller (triple jump) and Wagner (hammer throw) are all looking for their fourth PSAC titles in their respective events, while McCloskey has been the conference's top sprinter this season and Smith is a two-time indoor All-American in the hurdles.

All five are NCAA qualifiers, with Gallup already qualifying automatically with a mark of 16-7 in the pole vault last weekend at Kutztown. They are joined by men's javelin throwers Bill Buis and Kenny Cardullo and women's high jumpers Devyn Emerich, Lynn Mayer and Janelle Smith to give ESU 10 NCAA championship hopefuls, along with the men's 4x100m relay team.

McCloskey anchored the 4x100 relay to a time of 41.34 seconds, a school record and the best in the PSAC this season, and is the top-ranked sprinter in both the 100m (10.57) and 200m (21.35 - school record). He is looking for his first PSAC championship after finishing second in the 200m last year and third in both the 55m and 200m during the indoor season.

Junior Chris Reddick, who won the indoor title in the 200 and was second in the 400, should contend in both events this weekend. He also runs the second leg of the 4x100 relay, with sophomore Asher Ashfield leading off and junior Jeff McClenton running third.

Smith won his first PSAC title in the 55m hurdles during the indoor season and has the conference's best time of 14.46 seconds, also a school record, in the 110m hurdles this spring. He is also fifth in the 400m hurdles in 56.24 seconds.

Wagner is the defending champion and is ranked first in the hammer with a PSAC record throw of 190-7, is second in the shot put (50-7 1/2) and third in the discus (157-10). He should be a leading contender for his third Men's Field Athlete of the Meet award, which he swept during his sophomore year, and has also won two PSAC titles in the weight throw indoors. Senior Tom Sutor is fourth in the hammer at 179-1, a 25-foot improvement from his top throw last season.

Gallup and Miller have won every PSAC indoor and outdoor title awarded in their events since the start of their sophomore years. Gallup won the pole vault with a school-record height of 16-8 3/4 last year and will be making his second straight appearance at the NCAA Division II Championships later this month, while Miller comes in with the PSAC's best mark of 47-7 3/4 in the triple jump and went to the NCAA Championships twice as a sophomore.

In the javelin, Cardullo is fourth (203-3), Buis is sixth (201-1) and freshman Josh Hontz is 10th (191-3) for the Warriors. Other contenders to place in the field events include Cardullo, senior Shane Burrows and freshman Dan Johnson in the high jump, McClenton in the long jump, freshman Brandon Hillman in the triple jump and Johnson and junior Colin Feeney in the decathlon.

On the track, sophomore Chris Zadroga and senior Kyle Weir enter the weekend ranked fifth and seventh, respectively, in the 3000m steeplechase.

The ESU women's team has four of the top six high jumpers in Mayer and Smith (5-7), Emerich (5-6 3/4) and junior Trina Carito (5-5). Mayer was an indoor and outdoor All-American as a freshman last season, Smith also made two trips to nationals and Emerich was an NCAA qualifier during the indoor season this year as a freshman. Carito won the heptathlon outdoors and triple jump indoors a year ago before missing this year's indoor season due to injury.

Sophomore Allyson Cardullo has the third-best throw in the javelin at 131-8 while junior Amanda Sines is in the top 10 in the shot put, hammer throw and discus. Sophomore Danielle Laws (discus, 7th) and junior Emily Carothers (hammer, 10th) are also in the top 10 in their events.

Senior Kristen Morby holds ESU's school record in the pole vault at 10-6 1/4 and sophomore Steph Weber has cleared 10-0, with both going into the weekend in the top eight in the conference.

Senior Katherine Doyle and sophomore Jasmine Johnson give the Warriors two legitimate contenders in the 100, 200 and 400 meters.

Doyle is qualified in all three events and ran the second-fastest 400-meter split in school history in 56.2 seconds on the relay at Kutztown last weekend. She has been in the top four at the PSAC championships a total of five times in the last two years.

Johnson is fourth in the 400 (57.32) and sixth in the 200 (25.49) this season and was third in the 400 as a freshman a year ago. Her split of 24.5 seconds in the 4x200m relay at the Penn Relays was the fastest ever recorded at ESU.

Doyle and Johnson will both run on the 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams as well. The 4x100 squad, which also includes freshman Alyssa Rupp and senior Amilee Schillinger, has run a season-best of 48.72 seconds, while Doyle, Schillinger, Carito and Johnson turned in a time of 3:55.85 at the Penn Relays, the third-fastest in the PSAC this year.

Rounding out the Warriors' best chances to score on the track are junior Niki Pasquarella, who was third in the 3000m steeplechase last year, and sophomore Brittany Knowles in the 100m hurdles.