NAPERVILLE, ILL. – Senior Jack Flood (Blue Point/Bayport-Blue Point) won the national title in the heptathlon and was one of three Cortland All-Americans in the event during the final day of competition at the NCAA Division III Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships.
 
Cortland finished ninth in the final team standings out of 71 schools that scored at the event, which was hosted Friday and Saturday by North Central College. The Red Dragons scored 19 points for their fourth top-10 indoor national finish and best showing since a fifth-place effort in 2007. North Central and Wisconsin-La Crosse shared the team title with 34 points each.
 
Flood, who finished third in the heptathlon last year, won the title in a wild finish with a new school and SUNYAC record score of 5,247 points. His score is the fifth-best ever nationally in the event at the Division III level. Flood defeated Andrew Bartnett of Johns Hopkins by only nine points. Senior Connor Christopherson (Morrisonville/Saranac) finished in third place with 5,181 points, while sophomore Brent DiVittorio (Brewster) also earned All-America honors with his seventh-place score of 4,919 points. The top eight finishers in each event score team points and are All-Americans.
 
Sophomore Storm Malone (Harrison/Highland) also earned All-America honors on Day 2 for Cortland with an eight-place finish in the 60-meter hurdles. He recorded a time of 8.20 seconds and was part of a group from fourth to eighth place that was separated by only two hundredths of a second. David Benjamin of Rowan won the race in 7.98 seconds.
 
Also for the Red Dragons on Saturday, junior Dawan Jones (Buffalo/Tapestry Charter) and sophomore C.J. White (Middletown) finished 11th and 15th, respectively, in the triple jump. Jones registered a distance of 13.86 meters (45' 5.75") and White covered 13.37 meters (43' 10.5"). Stockton's Jared Lewis won the event at 15.05 meters (49' 4.5").
 
Cortland entered Saturday's final three heptathlon events in the top three spots – DiVittorio first, Flood second and Christopherson third. Christopherson took the lead through Saturday's first two events with scores of 913 points in the 60-meter hurdles (8.28) and 731 points in the pole vault (4.40 meters/14' 5.25"). Flood scored 893 points in the hurdles (8.36) and 702 points in the pole vault (4.30 meters/14' 1.25"), while DiVittorio scored 860 points in the hurdles (8.50) and 562 points in the pole vault (3.80 meters/12' 5.5").
 
Bartnett, however, surged into second place due to a pole vault of 5.20 meters (17' 0.75") that netted him 972 points. Entering the 1,000-meter run, Christopherson led with 4,413 points, followed by Bartnett with 4,408, Flood with 4,391 and DiVittorio with 4,234. Flood finished third in the 1,000 in 2:41.55, with Bartnett fifth in 2:43.98. Christopherson fell with about 30 meters remaining but was able to basically crawl across the line ninth in 2:49.72, while DiVittorio was 13th in 2:57.93. When the final points were awarded, Flood received 856 points, Bartnett 830, Christopherson 768 and DiVittorio 685, giving Flood the narrow win and placing Christopherson third.
 
Flood became Cortland's 103rd individual national champion in all sports. That number grew to 104 later on Saturday when wrestler Bobby Dierna won his second straight NCAA Division III title.

Final Results Page