Very strong run by Guilford College’s Johnathan Smith at NCAA DIII T&F with 2nd place finish in 200 meters

DELAWARE, Ohio – Guilford College freshman Johnathan Smith (Conyers,
Ga./Salem) capped a brilliant rookie season with a runner-up finish in the
200-meter dash Saturday at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field
Championships. Smith placed sixth in the 100-meter final earlier in the day
and earned All-America status in both events.

Guilford’s lone contestant at the meet, Smith scored 11 points for the
Quakers, which ranked 24th in the team standings among 82 scoring
institutions. North Central College won the national team title with 58
points, two points ahead of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Guilford
placed first among three Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) teams
represented at the meet.

Running into a headwind on Ohio Wesleyan University’s George Gauthier Track,
Smith ran the 200 in 22.05 seconds, a half second behind Moravian College
senior Eric Woodruff, who captured his third straight NCAA 200-meter crown.
Smith ran next to Woodruff in lane four, but could not keep up with the
seven-time All-American and four-time national champion running his final
college race. Smith, in his first national championship competition, edged
out Marcus Fortugno (22.23) of the University of La Verne for third place.

A little over an hour earlier in the day, Smith turned in a sixth-place
finish in a thrilling 100-meter dash. Woodruff earned his first national
title of the day in 10.90 seconds, a mere two-hundredths of a second in
front of McMurry University’s Kenneth Turner (10.92). Smith’s time was 10.98
seconds and the top-six finishers were separated by only eight-hundredths of
a second.

Smith, Guilford’s first Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships
contestant, is also the school’s first Division III track All-American
(indoors or outdoors). He won ODAC titles in the 55-meter dash (indoors) and
200 (outdoor) and placed second in the indoor 200. Smith set Guilford’s
school standard in the outdoor 200 (21.64 seconds) in Thursday’s heat race
at the NCAA Championships. He also set the Quakers’ indoor standards in the
55 (6.50), 60 (7.00) and 200 (22.70).

Smith helped coach Bill Cason’s Quakers to fourth place at the ODAC Indoor
and Outdoor Championships and to ninth place in the current United States
Track and Field & Cross Country Coaches Association South / Southeast
Regional Rankings.