Cralle earns All-America in hammer throw
6/9/2011 8:28:00 PM | Track & Field
Chris Cralle was hoping for a medal, however, he still will walk away as an All-American.
The Bearkat junior finished seventh in the hammer throw at the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday afternoon.
Cralle becomes just the second SHSU men's athlete to earn All-America honors for outdoor track, joining Adrian Ray. Just six athletes total have earned All-America for SHSU (5 outdoor, 1 indoor), all if them coming in the last 10 years. The last Bearkat to earn an NCAA All-America honor for track and field was Michael Courtney at the 2010 Indoor Championships.
Throwing in the second flight of the prelims, Cralle, champion of the West Prelimiary Round, already had a good idea of what he needed to throw to advance to the finals, which included the top nine out of 24 throwers in the preliminary round. After his first throw he stood in 13th. But on throw No. 2, Cralle tossed it 216-feet, 8-inches to move him to 8th and it held up to advance him to the finals.
On his first throw in the finals, Cralle improved his position with a throw of 218-1 to move him to 6th place. He stayed in 6th until the final round of throws when Trey Henderson of USC passed him. The event was won by Alexander Ziegler of Virginia Tech who edged his teammate Marcel Lomnicky with a throw of 238-6. LSU's Walter Henning took the bronze.
