March 8, 2011

VILLANOVA, Pa. - Senior Matthew Gibney (Albury, Australia) is headed to the national championships in the Mile and the Villanova distance medley relay squad has also earned an invitation to the national meet, it was announced this evening. The selections for the 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships were made official this evening. The national championship meet takes place this coming Friday and Saturday in College Station, Texas at Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium on the Texas A&M campus.

Gibney is the No. 7 ranked runner in the Mile with a personal best time of 3:58.12 set earlier this season at the Flotrack Husky Classic in Washington. He is a two-time BIG EAST champion in the event and will be one of 16 runners racing in the national championship race. The preliminaries of the men's Mile will be held on Friday at 4:15 p.m., with the finals set for Saturday at 5:10 p.m.

In addition to his automatic qualifying time in the Mile during the current indoor season, Gibney also ran the leadoff leg on the Villanova DMR squad which placed fifth this past weekend at the Alex Wilson Invitational at Notre Dame. Gibney led a Wildcat quartet which finished in a time of 9:33.50. This mark ranks as the 11th best in the nation this season and comfortably assured Villanova of receiving a selection to the NCAA Championships.

Gibney was joined on the DMR squad at the Alex Wilson meet by sophomore Carlton Bowers (Springfield, N.J.), senior Jason Apwah (Roxbury, N.J.) and junior Mathew Mildenhall (Auckland, New Zealand).

The men's DMR race will be held on Friday night at 8:40 p.m.

Additional information for following this weekend's championships will be posted later in the week.