Ferlic Earns Academic All-America Recognition
6/24/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
June 24, 2016
• Michigan's Academic All-Americans
AUSTIN, Texas -- Fifth-year senior co-captain Mason Ferlic of the University of Michigan men's track and field team was selected to the 2016 Academic All-America Division I Men's Track and Field and Cross Country second team, it was announced on Friday (June 24). The teams are voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Ferlic recently graduated with his master's degree in aerospace engineering, having already earned an undergraduate degree in the same concentration, and this year's honor marks his third consecutive season as part of the Academic All-America team after he earned third-team recognition in both 2014 and 2015.
Ferlic competed in all three seasons (cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field) for Michigan, and his outstanding career culminated in a national championship in the 3,000-meter steeplechase earlier this month (June 10) at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He became Michigan's first national title-winner since 2007 and just the second steeplechase champion in program history (Brian Diemer, 1983), when he ran a PR of 8:27.16 to solo the race in his third sub-Olympic standard time of the season.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Ferlic led the lineup last fall when the Maize and Blue won the team's first Big Ten cross country championship since 1998. He strung together a Big Ten runner-up finish with the NCAA Great Lakes Regional individual title, finishing as U-M's top athlete in each of the final 18 races of his varsity career. Ferlic was an All-Big Ten teamer on the course and in the classroom and helped guide Michigan to ninth at the NCAA Championships, completing the team's first Big Ten-NCAA Regional sweep with a top-10 national finish since 1997.
On the track, Ferlic scored 15 points indoors and 20 points outdoors at the Big Ten Championships in which Michigan finished fourth and second, respectively, marking the program's best conference season since 2008. Ferlic won three gold medals (Ferlic: indoor/outdoor 5K's, outdoor steeplechase) and during the indoor season, he helped restore Michigan's DMR tradition, bringing the program its first All-Americans in the event since 2007. He also ran the 1,600-meter leg on the relay that set a new program record in February, breaking the standard shared by the 2004 NCAA championship team, which featured three Olympians. During the outdoor national meet, his exploits pushed U-M to a tie for 13th place in the NCAA, the team's best finish since 1997 and just the second top-15 finish in the last 55 years of program history.
The first male program athlete to receive votes toward the Bowerman Award, Ferlic is an Olympic qualifier in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and is currently ranked ninth among American men. He defended his conference title in the event earlier this month (May 13-15) at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships and also won the 5K that weekend for his fifth career Big Ten crown. His steeple time (8:37.67) set a new facility record and led him to a one-two finish with teammate Connor Mora atop the podium as he became the first Big Ten athlete to sweep those two races since 2002. For his efforts, he became the third Wolverine ever to earn Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year and the fifth to win Track Athlete of the Championships recognition.
A number of former and current Wolverines are preparing for and competing in national qualifying events for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. U.S. Olympic trials run from July 1-10 at Historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, while the first athletes in action will compete in the United Kingdom this weekend. Current U-M record holder Joe Ellis will compete in the hammer throw on Sunday (June 26) in Birmingham, England. The event is scheduled to begin at 10:14 a.m. EDT.
Communications Contact: Chad Shepard
