Hamilton Completes Successful Season with NCAA Championships

BUFFALO, NY - Senior Shelly Hamilton (Lockport, NY, Lockport H.S.) completed her final season with the University at Buffalo Bulls with a 21st-place finish in the high jump at the 1999 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, held in Boise, Idaho on June 2-5.

Hamilton cleared the opening height of 5'8" in her final jump of her collegiate career, but couldn't make the jump to the next height of 5'9 3/4". Hamilton matched the height of Ifoma Jones of Houston and Jennifer Englhardt of Notre Dame, but fell in the rankings due to misses. Kajsa Bergqvist of Southern Methodist University won the event with a height of 6'2 3/4".

"I think that Shelly competed well today, and throughout her career here," Buffalo head coach Dick Barry said. "She has had somewhat of an injury prone year, with up and down performances but we have no excuses. She came out here to compete, and I think that she did well."

Hamilton ends her career with Buffalo mounting an impressive list of accolades. In the 1998-99 season she managed to break her own school record in the high jump with a NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 5'11 1/4", which she set in a winning performance at the UB Open II. She finished the year with five first-place finishes in an injury shortened season. Hamilton has set the school record three times in her career at UB. She is a three-time NCAA provisional qualifier and a three-time ECAC Championships participant. Hamilton ends her career with the Bulls as the University's first female Division I All-American, and the 1998-99 UB Female Athlete-of-the-Year.