At the 2011 MAAC Championships at the Armory Track and Field Center, junior Leonard Korir and graduate student Ben Lindsay led Iona. With the help of both runners, the Gaels were able to capture a fourth place finish. Korir also shared the honor of co-Men’s Most Outstanding Performer for Track Events with Rider’s Christian Gonzalez.

Korir continued his outstanding season by out kicking Gonzalez in the mile race. Korir’s time of 4:04.03 was 1.5 seconds behind the MAAC Championship record set by former Iona standout Richard Kiplagat in 2005. Fellow Gael sophomore Chris Stogsdill was also in the race and finished third with a personal best time of 4:09.46.

Korir was running the race to work on some of his speed and was not expecting to win. Korir said, “I was not expecting to win, because the race had some very good middle distance runners like Rider’s Christian Gonzalez and Chris Stogsdill, but winning the race gives me more confidence as I go for NCAA Nationals.”

The Gaels other star of the night, Lindsay, was victorious in the 3000-meter run by beating fellow Gaels sophomore Craig Murphy and junior Alexander Soderberg. The Gaels distance squad did a lot of damage in the race with a sweep of the top three spots. Murphy ran 8:19.14, while Soderberg crossed the line in 8:21.41.

Head Coach Ricardo Santos commented on the race by saying, “I thought Ben did really well, and so did Alex Soderberg and Craig Murphy.  Our game plan in the 3,000m was to go 1,2,3, and the guys did a great job in getting a quick pace going early and shaking off the rest of the field.”

The Gaels continued to dominate distance, by crushing the field in the distance medley relay with a winning time of 10:08.87.

Their time was almost 13 seconds ahead of runner-up Rider and the team included veterans senior Dave Grange, senior Jason Weller, junior Matt Bayley and Korir.

Coach Santos also did not fail to mention the performance of Weller who was fifth in the mile in 4:13.33 and fourth in the 800-meter run in 1:57.05, while also racing in the winning relay.

“Jason Weller was the iron man of the meet, Jason scored in two individual events and also ran on the DMR, it was a busy day for him,” said Santos.

The MAACs were a very successful day for Iona’s high-ranking distance crew as they paced the field with relative ease.

Korir summarized his goals after the meet by saying, “My objective now is to keep on working extra hard, because Nationals will not be easy. There are a lot of good guys out there who want to run fast and get something, so I want to get ready for anything that might happen.”