GREENSBORO, N.C. – Senior Raphael Hall (Chesapeake, Va.) tied for eighth in the high jump on Friday at the NCAA East Region Track & Field Championship at the Irwin Belk Track on the campus of North Carolina A&T, earning him a spot to the national championship meet which runs from June 9-12 in Eugene, Ore.

Hall tied with two other jumpers with a top height of 6 feet, 11 inches. Seven other athletes cleared 7-1 to lead the pack of 12 who will advance to nationals. This will be Hall's second trip to the national meet in his Spartan career. He finished fifth in the region as a sophomore in 2008 and made the national finals.

Also Friday, junior Aramis Massenburg (Ettrick, Va.) finished second in his first-round heat of the 110-meter hurdles, automatically earning him a spot in Saturday's quarterfinal round. Massenburg's time of 13.99 seconds qualified him 11th out of the 24 runners for Saturday's quarterfinals. He needs to finish in the top 12 to earn a spot in the national semifinals next month in Oregon.

It was a tense start to the evening for both junior Thomas Speller (Chesapeake, Va.) and sophomore Sean Holston (Springfield, Va.) in the 200 meters. The top three finishers in each heat plus the next six fastest times advanced to Saturday's quarterfinals. Both Speller (20.99) and Holston (21.08) placed fourth in their respective heats, meaning they had to sweat out the results of subsequent heats to see if their times would rank among the next six fastest. In the end, they both made the cut. Speller had the 13th-fastest time and Holston the 15th-fastest overall out of Saturday's field of 24.