National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Mar 30, 2010 8:18:34 AM

Merrimack will add indoor and outdoor track next year, pushing the total of intercollegiate sports at the school from 16 to 20.

"During economic times in which many institutions and athletics departments are being forced to cut sports, we are excited about the model we have put together in working with our admissions department that allows us to add indoor and outdoor track," said Athletics Director Glenn Hofmann. "The addition will increase enrollment at Merrimack, improve the overall quality of our cross country program and afford current members of our cross country program to compete in both the winter and spring seasons."

Indoor track and outdoor track will be offered to male and female student-athletes who will compete primarily in distance events. Matt Pimentel, the assistant cross country coach at Merrimack, will serve as the head coach for the men's and women's indoor and outdoor track teams.  

"This is a great step for our program," said Pimentel. "Promoting indoor and outdoor track to varsity sports creates an outstanding opportunity for our student-athletes, now and in the future. Growing a successful track team will help us to become more competitive in cross country and allow us to continue to recruit a talented student-athlete." 

"This will improve what is an already successful cross country program to get to the next level," said Chris Cameron, the head cross country coach for 17 years at Merrimack.

Indoor track competes in the Northeast-10 in the winter and outdoor track in the spring. Merrimack will participate only in the distance events.