Men's Track and Field | 5/25/2022 3:00:00 PM

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – Head Coach Mike Henchen will travel to Geneva, Ohio, with three members of the St. John Fisher College track and field program for the 2022 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The three-day meet at the SPIRE Institute begins on Thursday, May 26, and concludes on Saturday, May 28.

Kyle Rollins, Michaela Kurbs, and Veronica Duell will represent the Cardinal and Gold in four different events on the national stage. Looking to add to his hardware collection, Rollins – the most decorated student-athlete in school history – will compete in the high jump and triple jump. Kurbs and Duell both qualified for nationals in the long jump.

For more information regarding the 2022 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships, visit the links below:

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Action begins on Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m., when Kurbs and Duell face off against 20 other student-athletes in the long jump. On Friday at 2:00 p.m., Rollins will look to defend his two previous outdoor national titles in the high jump. On Saturday at 11:00 a.m., Rollins will conclude his quest for gold in the triple jump.

ONE DOOR OPENS AS ANOTHER CLOSES
This week's NCAA Championships are the last collegiate event on the docket for Rollins, who will leave behind a legacy as one of the greatest athletes in Fisher history. Meanwhile, Kurbs and Duell – the first freshman in the history of the women's program to qualify for the outdoor championships – will make their debuts in what is hopefully their first of many appearances on the grandest stage.

PAGING PAT RILEY
The former Miami Heat head coach and current team president may own the trademark for the term "three-peat," but Rollins won't need his permission to chase his third consecutive outdoor high jump title. A third-straight finish atop the podium would make Rollins just the second athlete in D-III history to win back-to-back-to-back high jumps, joining former Wheaton College (Mass.) standout Dan Olson (2002-04).

Only one other high jumper, Stan Watson of Pomona-Pitzer, has won a trio of national championships in the high jump, although his were not achieved in consecutive seasons (1981-82, 1984). 

NO. 1 IN THE FIELD, NO. 1 IN OUR HEARTS
A graduate student from Groveland, New York, Rollins enters the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Championships as the favorite in both of his events. In his signature event, the high jump, he owns the top-seeded mark at 2.12 meters. The next closest competitor is Sam Beatty, a freshman from Central College, who reached 2.09 meters this season.

At the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) Championships last week, Rollins recorded the longest triple jump in the country at 15.11 meters. He surpassed Utica University's Ka'Sean Watlington (15.10), this year's Empire 8 Conference champion, by just one-hundredth of a meter. Rollins' mark of 15.11 meters would have tied Ahmir Johnson from Rowan University, who took home the title in 2021.

ON A "ROLL-INS"
As the 2021-22 indoor high jump winner, Rollins is seeking to became the first Division III student-athlete to capture both indoor and outdoor championships in the same season since Nathan Davis of Heidelberg University in 2013. That year, Davis placed first in the indoor high jump at 2.14 meters, before repeating outside at 2.12 meters. Rollins nearly accomplished the feat in 2019, but was the national runner-up during the indoor season before earning his first outdoor crown.

LAST CHANCE TICKET
Duell punched her ticket to the NCAA Championships in late April, when the first-year talent from Bergen, New York, leaped 5.81 meters to establish a new program record at the 2022 Cardinal Classic at the Polisseni Track and Field Complex. On the other hand, Kurbs didn't secure her bid to nationals until the AARTFC Championships. 

In her last opportunity to score a qualifying mark at the regional meet, Kurbs equaled Duell's record-setting distance. As a result, the second-year jumper from Lockport, New York, went from being outside the top-22 ranked athletes in the long jump to tying her teammate for No. 12 on the leaderboard.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING
Although the men's track and field team at Fisher has produced a laundry list of of All-Americans since 2015, the tandem of Kurbs and Duell have their sights set on history this spring. Should either jumper place inside the top eight, they'd become the first women's track and field student-athlete in program history to secure an All-America award. The closest a Cardinal has come to receving such an honor was Taylor Youngkrans, who finished ninth in the hammer throw at the 2015 Division III championships.