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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Southern men announce three additions for track Head coach Tom Rutledge has announced three additions for the Missouri Southern State University men's track & field program. Rutledge said that Ricky Armstrong (Potosi, Mo.) and Corey Reynolds (Noesho, Mo.) have signed on with the Lions for the 2006-07 academic year. In additon, Rutledge announced that Lenell Stephens, a shot put and discus thrower from Cleveland, Ohio, will join the team in the spring 2006 semester. Stephens, who attended J.F. Rhodes High School in Cleveland, has spent three semesters at Independence (Kan.) Community College. Stephens, a kinesiology major, is the son of Rodell and Diane Motley. Armstrong is a 6-foot-1 runner who will compete in both track & field and cross country with the Green & Gold. In the 2005 cross country season, Armstrong finished 12th at the Missouri Class 3 State Championships, earning all-state honors for the first time in cross country. As a junior, he was an all-district runner. His top 5,000-meter cross country time as a high school performer was 16:19. Armstrong helped Potosi to a Class 3 state title as a senior, a year after the team was state runner-up. As a junior in track & field, Armstrong was an all-district and all-state performer and he set personal bests in the 800 (2:01.3), 3200 (10:08) and 400 (54.3). He is part of the Trojans' school record-holding 4x800-meter relay team (7:54.93). The son of Richard Armstrong and Brenda Colson, he hopes to major in physical therapy at Southern. Reynolds is a 6-foot-2 jumper from Neosho, where he has lettered three years in track & field. He's a two-time state qualifier in the high jump, and he finished fifth in Missouri Class 4 as a junior with a personal best and school-record mark of 6-foot-6. Reynolds has been a sectional qualifier all three years in the high jump and helped the Wildcats to conference titles in 2003 and 2005. Reynolds is the son of John and Connie Reynolds and hopes to study computer programming at MSSU. Armstrong and Reynolds will join the Lions in the fall of 2006. Missouri Southern has won or shared five of the last six Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association cross country championships and has consistently finished among the league's top four in both indoor and outdoor track & field. The Lions won the MIAA indoor championship in 2004. |