Keith Bechtol Selected for NCAA Championships

Senior Distance Ace to Make First Appearance at National Meet

06/01/07 10:47AM

SACRAMENTO, CALIF - William and Mary senior Keith Bechtol (Alexandria, Va.) will be making his first trip to the NCAA Track and Field Championships, it was announced this week. Bechtol is ranked 18th nationally in the 10,000m run, and will compete for the national title in that event next Thursday, June 7, in Sacramento, California.

Bechtol qualified for the NCAAs when he ran a career-best mark of 28:55.57 at Stanford in April. That time is the third fastest in school history, behind only 11-time All-American Matt Lane ’01 and four-time All-American Ken Halla ’86. In addition to being an NCAA-provisional mark, his performance also qualified Bechtol provisionally for the USAT&F National Championships at the end of June, and provisionally for the 2008 Olympic Trials as well.

Bechtol, a 2006 Academic All-American and Phi Beta Kappa initiate, has had the finest year of his career in 2006-07. In cross country, he finished seventh at the Southeast Regional to lead the Tribe to its 10th consecutive berth at the NCAA Championships, and finished a personal-best 60th at the national meet. In track, he won the CAA 5,000m championship, and 20 minutes later, took third in the 10,000m race. All-East both indoors and outdoors at 5,000m, he set his personal-best mark of 14:08.76 while taking third at the outdoor IC4A Championships.

The 10,000m championship is a single-heat final, and will be run at 8 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, June 7. The final two days of the Championships, which run from June 6-9, will be broadcast live on television. The broadcasts, which will also feature highlights from the first two days, will air from 8:30-11:30 p.m. on CSTV on Friday, June 8; and from 1-3 p.m. on CBS on Saturday, June 9.