March 5, 2004

Boston, Mass. - The George Mason men's and women's track teams traveled to Boston on Friday to prepare for this weekend's IC4A and ECAC Championships. Both the men's and women's teams will be looking for a top 10 finish at the regional meet and several athletes will be looking to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships next weekend.

The men's team has six athletes competing at the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) Championships in seven different events. Marc Kellman is the lone Patriot competing in two individual events. He participates in the long jump on Saturday and the triple jump on Sunday. Also competing in the triple jump is Ryan McCoy.

A pair of athletes will be in the 55-meter hurdles, with Richard Phillips and Ricardo Melbourne running in prelims on Saturday and, hopefully, finals on Saturday. Both hurdlers are members of the 4X400-meter relay team, along with Mashel Jackson and Henry Harris. Jackson will compete in just the relay event while Harris will run in the 200-meters as well.

George Mason has place in the top three in 11 out of 16 indoor championships in which they have competed. The Patriots have produced 92 IC4A champions, but none in the indoor season since 2002, when Gareth Peters won the 800-meters an and the 4X400-meter team snared first place.

The women's team will compete at the Eastern College Athletic Conference meet with mostly preliminaries on Saturday with finals on Sunday. Eleven athletes made the trip and they will be competing in a total of 13 different events.

Junior Shamekia Louis will be competing in two individual events, the long jump and the 60-meters. Four other Patriots will be competing in multiple events, an individual and a team event. Sheena Davidson will compete in the 400-meters and 4X400-meters, Paula Bailey will run in the 400-meters and 4X400-meters, Alycia Williams will take part in the 500-meters and 4X400-meters and Alyce Williams will compete in the triple jump and 4X400-meters.

Also competing are Corri Allen in the long jump, Nichole Brown in the high jump, Sheena Goss in the 800-meters, Alicia Lowery in the 60-meters, Dana Early in the 1,000-meters and Kim Morgan in the long jump.

Since the ECAC began holding both indoor and outdoor championships in 1984, George Mason is the only school to sweep titles in successive years (1991-92), although 1999 was the fifth time the Patriots have swept the indoor and outdoor team titles. The Patriots are second in all-time team victories with 10, behind Penn State's 12. However, George Mason has not had a ECAC indoor champion since 1999, when Cydonie Mothersill won the 200-meters and the 4X400-meter relay team finished first.

Alyce Williams, Sheena Davidson, Richard Phillips and Ricardo Melbourne have all provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships next week and they will be looking to either grab automatic qualifying spots or to improve their seeding, while the other athletes will be looking to earn bids at the championships.