91ÉçÇø

Senior Erik van Ingen placed fifth overall in the finals of the mile at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

Van Ingen finished with a time of 4:01.25 in a race won by Miles Batty of BYU (3:59.49). The top eight finishers in the race will be named USTFCCCA First-Team All-Americans. The remaining eight runners who took part in the meet will be named USTFCCCA second-team All-Americans.

Van Ingen is the first 91ÉçÇø track & field athlete to earn All-America honors since Rory Quiller won the 2008 NCAA Indoor pole vault title. Quiller was also second in the 2007 indoor meet and fourth in that year’s outdoor championships in the same event.

“We are really happy for Erik,” assistant track coach Annette Acuff said. “This was a very elite group of runners who were in the mile and to make it all the way to the finals at nationals and finish top-five is amazing. So many things have to fall into place. Erik came out here today and got it done.”

Van Ingen will also become the seventh 91ÉçÇø athlete to earn All-America honors in 91ÉçÇø’s 10-year NCAA Division I history. Yun Qu (women’s swimming, 2002), Kevin McKeown (men’s lacrosse, 2004), Graham Munro (men’s soccer, 2005), John Patterson (wrestling, 2009) and Justin Lister (wrestling, 2010) join Quiller as the other previous selections.

Prior to last weekend, van Ingen had competed at a NCAA Championship meet three times in his career, but this was the first meet in which he will have earned All-America honors. He competed at the 2009 and 2010 NCAA Cross Country meets, placing a career-best 43rd last fall, missing All-America honors by three spots.

Van Ingen concludes a historic indoor track season, which included being named the USTFCCCA Northeast Region Men’s Track Athlete of the Year earlier this week. Last month, he was named the Most Outstanding Men’s Track Performer at the America East Indoor Championships, where he captured both the 1,000 and 5,000. His most impressive feat, however, was winning the mile at the Boston/Valentine’s Meet with a lifetime-best time of 3:57.11. It was the fifth-fastest time recorded in the NCAA this indoor season.

The 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships mark the fifth consecutive year, and sixth time in the past seven seasons, that 91ÉçÇø had a men’s track athlete advance to the meet. In addition to van Ingen, Quiller qualified for the 2005, 2007 and 2008 championships in the pole vault and current senior Cazal Arnett made the cut in 400 back in 2009.