Syracuse Track & Field: Six Athletes Are NCAA Bound

Last night, official entries closed for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships, which will be held March 11th and 12th in Birmingham, Alabama. Six members of the Syracuse Orange have qualified for the meet, all of them are 1st-time Indoor Track qualifiers. This is the largest number of qualifiers for the program in over 20 years, (and possibly the largest all-time for the Indoor meet, but I wasn't able to confirm). In order to qualify, athletes must be in the top 16 declared athletes in the event.

Shaina Harrison is the lone member of the women's team to qualify. She will compete in the 60m dash where her seed time of 7.29 is 13th in the field. Shaina was 2nd at the ACC Championships last week.

Freddie Crittenden has the 9th-fastest time (7.70) in the 60m hurdles. He won the ACC Title in the event and has been a two-time All-American outdoors in the 110m hurdles.

Joel Hubbard and Adam Palamar will compete in the Mile. Hubbard (3:58.43) is seeded 11th and Palamar (3:58.55) is seeded 13th. The cut-off time for this year's mile was 3:58.98.

Justyn Knight will compete in the 3000m in Birmingham. Knight has the 3rd-fastest seed time (7:48.71) in the event and is coming off his 3k/5k double at the ACC meet. The two runners ahead of him were the top 2 finishers at the 2015 NCAA Cross-Country Championships- Edward Cheserek of the Oregon Ducks, and Patrick Tiernan of the Villanova Wildcats.

Colin Bennie rounds out the Orange representatives. He's got the 4th-fastest seed time in the 5000m (13:38.1). Bennie is going to also run against King Ches, who is looking to help Oregon to the team title.

The Syracuse men have a chance at more program history as they look for the highest team finish at a NCAA Indoor Championship. We'll have more coverage of these athletes leading up to the meet.