Mar 1, 2019 1 min read

BROOKINGS, S.D. — Point Park University’s Xavier Stephens earned the first NAIA All-American honors of his career on Friday when he won his heat and made the finals of the 1,000-meter run at the NAIA Indoor Track & Field National Championships.

Stephens, a junior from Uniontown, Pa., ran a time of 2 minutes, 31.27 seconds in Friday’s preliminaries. Running in heat two of three, he won the heat to secure an automatic spot in the finals. After the completion of heat three, his time stood up as third place entering Saturday’s championship race.

By making the finals, Stephens has earned NAIA All-American status among the top eight in the country. Already an all-conference performer many times over, a conference MVP and a multi-time national qualifier, Stephens adds the honor of NAIA All-American to his long list of accomplishments.

Stephens was running in third or fourth place for the first 600 meters of the race. Then he made a move on the outside to push up to second place. In an outstanding final lap, Stephens pushed out in front and won the heat just in front of Luke Skinner of St. Mary (Kan.).