NCAA Championship field - Men / Women

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EAST STROUDSBURG - Juniors Matt Gallup (pole vault) and Andrew McCloskey (100m dash) were both automatic qualifiers and lead a school-record contingent of nine East Stroudsburg University track and field athletes, along with the men's 4x100 relay team, that were selected to compete in the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 21-23 at San Angelo, Texas.

The Warriors' nine athletes are tied with Shippensburg for the most in the PSAC. ESU has six of the 21 men's athletes that were selected from the conference, a group which helped the Warriors finish second in the PSAC Championships for the first time since 1979 and score 137 points, the most in school history. ESU sent eight athletes to the 2008 outdoor championships, a record that lasted just one year.

Joining Gallup and McCloskey are junior Rusty Smith (110m hurdles), junior Paul Wagner (hammer throw) and junior Kenny Cardullo and sophomore Bill Buis in the javelin. On the women's side, sophomore Jasmine Johnson will run the 400m and junior Janelle Smith and sophomore Lynn Mayer will compete in the high jump. Rusty Smith, Cardullo, Mayer and Janelle Smith are all making their third career appearances at the NCAA Championships.

McCloskey, the PSAC champion in the 100 and 200-meter dashes last weekend, headlines the Warriors' selections. He is the first men's sprinter to go to the NCAA Championships in school history after turning in an automatic qualifying time of 10.41 seconds in the 100 last Saturday. McCloskey also just missed earning a spot in the 200, where his qualifying time of 21.35 was seven-hundredths off the final athlete selected.

Sophomore Asher Ashfield and juniors Chris Reddick, Jeff McClenton and McCloskey comprise the first ESU relay team to be selected to compete in the NCAA Championships. The quartet recorded a PSAC championship-record time of 40.83 seconds, the 10th-best in the nation this season, to win the Warriors' first conference title in the event since the 1978 relay squad which competed at nationals under a previous qualification system.

Gallup cleared 16-7 in the pole vault on May 1 to automatically qualify for the NCAA's for the second straight year. A four-time PSAC champion, Gallup holds the school record at 16-8 3/4 and will be one of 19 men's pole vaulters at San Angelo, all of whom are automatic qualifiers in a very strong field.

Rusty Smith and Mayer are both two-time All-Americans and will look to join six other ESU athletes that have earned three All-America honors during their time on campus - Jim Lauck, Paul Ferency, Pete Heesen, Lenny Jenkins, Jan Blake and Karen Way, a four-time All-American from 1989-91 who has been an assistant coach at ESU for the last 12 years.

Smith has been an All-American in the 60m hurdles indoors the last two years and will be making his first appearance at the outdoor championships. He won his second career PSAC championship with a school-record time of 14.41 seconds in the 110m hurdles last weekend and was fifth in the nation at the indoor championships in March at the University of Houston.

Mayer was an All-American both indoors and outdoors last year as a freshman and will also be making her third career NCAA Championships appearance, along with teammate Janelle Smith. Mayer and Smith both qualified with marks of 5-7 at the Penn Relays and went to both national meets a year ago, where Mayer tied for fifth indoors (5-7) and was sixth outdoors (5-8).

Cardullo will also be making his third NCAA appearance and is looking for his first All-America honor, while Buis is going to nationals for the first time. ESU has had nine All-Americans in the men's javelin since 1971, the most of any event. Cardullo qualified 10th with a mark of 203-3 and was 12th in Division II as a sophomore and 14th as a freshman. Buis took the 16th and final spot in this year's field with a throw of 201-1.

Wagner was ninth in the weight throw at the indoor championships in March, one spot away from All-America status. He set the PSAC record in the hammer throw at 190-7 on April 18 and won his fourth career PSAC championship last weekend with a mark of 190-3. He has won the weight indoors and hammer outdoors each of the last two years.

Johnson was the final Warrior to reach a national qualifying standard this year and will be the first ESU women's athlete to compete at the NCAA outdoor championships at a distance under 1500 meters. She ran a provisional time of 56.79 in the prelims of the PSAC Championships last Friday, then clocked a school record of 56.06 seconds that moved her into 13th in Division II on the national performance list.

In all, ESU's nine individuals have combined for 17 appearances at the NCAA Championships and 13 PSAC titles, to go with the men's championship in the 4x100m relay.

The championships will begin on Thursday, May 21 at the LeGrand Sports Complex at Angelo State. Wagner will be the first Warrior to compete in the finals of his event on Thursday, while McCloskey, Johnson and the 4x100 relay will run in the prelims.