Feb. 18, 2001

The University of Notre Dame men's track and field team finished third in the 2001 BIG EAST Indoor Track and Field Championships in Syracuse, N.Y. Georgetown won its fourth consecutive conference title with 130.50 points while Seton Hall finished second with 90 points and the Irish had 83. Notre Dame was in fourth place after the first day of competition. The Irish have now finished in the top three in the BIG EAST Championships in all six years since joining the conference.

Senior Andrew Cooper (Granville, Ohio) was the lone champion for Notre Dame on Sunday as he won the high jump by scaling 6-9. Notre Dame's only other event champion, senior All-American Ryan Shay (Central Lake, Mich.), followed up Saturday's conference title in the 5,000 meters by finishing second in the 3,000 meters in 8:10.21.

Other than Cooper's high-jump triumph, other field performers enjoyed much success for Notre Dame. Junior Josh Heck (Mishawaka, Ind.) finished second in the pole vault by clearing 15-9 while sophomore Nathan Cahill (East Lansing, Mich.) scaled the same height to finish fifth. Also, freshman Godwin Mbagwu (Petersburg, Va.) was second in the triple jump with a leap of 48-2.75.

Shay was not the only distance runner to give Notre Dame points this weekend. Junior Patrick Conway (Springfield, Va.) and senior Sean Zanderson (Poway, Calif.) placed fourth and fifth respectively in the mile run. Conway ran the race in 4:15.22, while Zanderson took 4:15.68.

Notre Dame's sprinters came through with a strong finish in the 1,600-meter relay. The team of James Bracken (North Andover, Mass.), Terry Wray (Brandon, Miss.), Nick Setta (Lockport, Ill.) and Mike Mansour (Creston, Iowa) gained fourth-place points with a time of 3:17.09.

The Irish will return to action at home on March 2-3 in the Alex Wilson Invitational at the Loftus Sports Complex.

Full results from both days of the 2001 BIG EAST Championships can be obtained at http://www.bigeast.org/sports/itrack.