NEW YORK – Junior hurdler Kevon Brown, rookie sprinter Dennis Willis, Jr. and the 4 x 400-meter relay team posted ECAC Indoor Championship qualifying times to highlight Rutgers-Newark's performance in the Metro Coaches Invitational in the NYC Armory.

2012 METRO COACHES INVITATIONAL RESULTS
R-N Results At Metro Coches Invitational

Brown, a 2011 All-American in the hurdles who is recovering from off-season surgery in both legs to relieve compartment syndrome, notched a time of 8.46 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles preliminaries – his sixth fastest time in the event – to finish fifth in a field of 16 competitors.  He finished sixth in the finals in a time of 8.61.  His time in the preliminaries punched his ticket to the ECAC hurdle field for the third year in a row.

Willis ran the second fastest time in R-N history in the 60-meter dash, posting a time of 7.10 seconds to finish 11th in a field of 46 runners to earn his first trip to the ECACs.  He barely missed Nnaemeka Ibeh's school mark of 7.06 set on the same track at the Gotham Cup on January 18, 2008.  Teammate Mustafa Lawrence, running in his first meet in Scarlet & Black, posted a time of 7.40 in the event.

Freshmen Donnie House and Michael Agyei, senior Vladimir Manasse and junior Corey Graves erased the R-N record in the 4 x 400-meter relay in a clocking of 3:25.99 to finish fourth in a field of a dozen teams.  The Raider quartet, which shaved over two seconds off of the previous school best, was the top NCAA D-III unit in the race.  The old record of 3:27.03 was set at the 2010 New Jersey Athletic Conference Indoor Championships by Ibeh, Brown, Shariff Stubbs and Graves.

The Raider “B” 4 x 400-meter team of Willis, senior Darnell Armstrong, Lawrence and freshman Ryan Sedlacik posted a time of 3:43.42.

House placed 15th in field of 44 in the 400-meter dash with a 51.18 clocking, posting the fastest time in the event at R-N by someone other than record-holding graduate Ibeh (2007-10).  Ibeh, who owns the R-N record of 49.50 in the 400, still possesses the best 17 times in school history.  Agyei finished 21st in 52.51 while Sedlacik posted a 56.37 clocking.

Armstrong was 16th in a field of 31 in the 800-meter run in a time of 2:05.62, finishing three spots ahead of Manasse who was clocked at 2:06.48.

In the shot put, freshman Nick DeRosa had a best effort of 11.55 meters to finish seventh in a field of 20.  It was the second best throw on the R-N books, trailing only DeRosa's 11.69 heave on December 4 in the CTC Relay Carnival.  Classmate Schylar Finley got off a throw of 9.07 to finish 15th.

Rutgers-Newark returns to the Armory next Friday to compete in the Gotham Cup.