CLAREMONT, Calif. -- Brandeis senior Chris Brown (No. Chelmsford, Mass./Chelmsford) closed out his stellar campaign today by placing fourth in the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field championships at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges in California to earn All-America honors for the second time in 2012.
Brown, the top seed in the event headed into the meet, finished with a time of 3:56.36, well off his school-record pace of 3:43.39. He ran the 10th-fastest time in the preliminaries, finishing second in the slower of the two prelim heats. Brown finished just six one-hundredths of a second out of a top-three performance, but just under one full second behind champion Dan Sullivan of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Brown sat in either fourth or fifth place through the first two laps of the race, which featured a lot of contact as runners tried to pass one another. He started to fall back in the third 400-meters. As Sullivan took the lead on the final lap, Brown started to charge from the back of the pack. He moved all the way into second place at one point, but Brown was unable to complete the comeback on the leader while a pair of opponents overtook him as well.
Brown was the top finisher from New England and from the University Athletic Association in the race. He earned five points for the Judges, who tied for 41st place. That was good for a tie for sixth among New England Schools and tops among UAA institutions.