Guilford’s Smith Qualifies for NCAA Track & Field Championships

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Guilford College freshman Johnathan Smith (Conyers, Ga./Salem) will run in the 2011 NCAA Division III Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships this weekend in Delaware, Ohio. The NCAA released the meet’s participant list Sunday afternoon in advance of the championships, which begin Thursday (5/26) at Selby Stadium on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University.

Smith, the first Guilford student to qualify for an NCAA Division III track and field championship, will run in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. He posted NCAA Championship provisional-qualifying times during the season and was one of 22 students tabbed for the 200 preliminaries, which runs Thursday (5/26) at 7:45 p.m. Smith is one of 20 contestants in the 100, which takes place Friday (5/27) at 7:30 p.m. Both events’ finals are set for Saturday (5/28).

Smith ran the Division III’s 15th-fastest 200 time of the season last Sunday (5/15) at the North Carolina A&T State University Aggie Classic. His mark of 21.70 seconds is a school record and capped a sterling season in which he ran the five fastest 200 times in Guilford history. Smith clocked his 100 NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 10.75 seconds in the outdoor season’s first meet, the Wake Forest University Open, Mar. 18. It stands second all-time at Guilford.

Smith helped coach Bill Cason’s Quakers place fourth at last month’s Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Championships. Smith won the 200 at the meet and took second in the discipline at the 2011 ODAC Indoor Championships. He also won the 55-meter indoor crown.

Guilford is ranked ninth in the most recent United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division III South/Southeast Region Rankings.

Meet information and results can be found at the official NCAA Division III Championships website at: http://www.ncaa.com/championships/trackfield-outdoor-men/d3.