CLAREMONT, Calif. -- Brandeis senior Chris Brown of North Chelmsford, Mass., has qualified for the finals of the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field championships hosted by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps College.
Brown, who had the fastest time in Division III this season entering the meet, finished second in his heat with a time of 3:54.82. He and a pack of three other runners trailed Amherst junior Patrick Grimes for much of the race before tracking him down in the final 200 meters or so. Sophomore Dan Sullivan of Wisconsin-Stevens Point won the heat, just nine one-hundredths of a second ahead of Brown. Overall, Brown turned in the 10th-fastest time of the prelims, with the eight fastest times coming from the second heat of the day. Senior Jack Deichert of Hamline College will enter the finals with the top seed, winning Heat Two with a time of 3:52.02.\
Brown will be one of three New England runners in the finals, along with Coby Horowitz of Bowdoin and Benjamin Mattocks of MIT, while NYU's Matt Turlip is the only other University Athletic Association runner in the finals.
Brown, the New England Division III Outdoor Track Runner of the Year, is looking for his second All-America honor of 2012. He was third overall in the mile run indoors. Brown is also hoping to be Brandeis's first national champion since 1999. The finals will be contested at 4:50 p.m. (EST) on Saturday.
Click here for results from the 1,500-meter run preliminary results.