Three Athletes Earn All-America Honors At NCAA Championships

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Junior Abigail Schaffer (Easton, PA/Easton HS) of the Moravian College women's indoor track & field team won the 2011 NCAA Division III National Championship in the pole vault to lead the Greyhounds on the second day of competition at Capital University Saturday.

Senior Eric Woodruff (Brodheadsville, PA/Pius X HS) and sophomore Micah Leonard (York, PA/William Penn HS) also earned All-America honors for 7th place finishes in their events Saturday.

For the second straight year, Moravian is the home to the national champion in the pole vault in a new NCAA meet record. Schaffer won the pole vault with a height of 4.17 meters (13 feet, 8 /14 inches), bettering the meet and school record set by Anna Heim '10 set at last year's national championship meet by one half of an inch. Schaffer cleared heights of 3.77, 3.87, 3.97 and the winning 4.17 meters on her first attempt while taking two attempts to clear 4.07 meters.

Schaffer would have still won the national championship in the event at 4.07 meters as runner-up Karin Fisher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology needed all three attempts to clear 4.07 meters. Schaffer's win earned ten points for the Greyhounds.

Moravian's other two points on the second day of the meet came from Leonard, who earned All-America honors for the second time in the championship as she placed seventh in the triple jump at 11.46 meters (37 feet, 7 1/4 inches). Leonard's longest distance came on her second of three jumps in the finals. In the preliminaries, Leonard was fourth in her flight at seventh overall at 11.40 meters, which came on her second of the three preliminary jumps. Tanasia Hoffler from Williams College won the triple jump at 12.24 meters (40 feet, two inches). Leonard earned All-America honors in the long jump on the opening day of competition.

On the men's side, Woodruff earned All-America honors in the 55-meter dash, placing seventh in a time of 7.70 seconds. Woodruff had tied for fourth in the preliminaries at 6.42 seconds but an injury last weekend at the ECAC Championships slowed him running for the second time in 24 hours. Woodruff, who is the two-time defending champion in the 200 meters outdoors, earned All-America honors for the fifth time in his career, and the first time indoors.

The Moravian women tied for 11th of 57 teams scoring points at the 2011 NCAA Division III Indoor National Championships. The Greyhounds scored 13 points while the University of Wisconsin-Osh Kosh won the meet with 46.5 points. Wartburg (IA) College was second with 44 points.

The Greyhound men finished tied for 56th of 66 scoring teams with two points. North Central College captured the men's title with 55 points while Central (IA) College was second with 44 points.

Story provided by Moravian Sports Information