Benjamin Fazio of RPI Track & Field Earns Weekly Award

2017 Apr 26

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) student-athlete Benjamin Fazio of East Greenwich 02818 has been selected to the Liberty League for an outstanding effort in track & field.

Fazio helped the Engineers win the Liberty League Championship Meet on Saturday. The win was the ninth straight for RPI, which had 298 points to outdistance second-place Rochester Institute of Technology (217 points) and four other schools. The Track Performer of the Meet, Fazio (East Greenwich) won both the events in which he competed. He won the 800 meters in a Liberty League record 1:53.35, beating 28 others, including the runner-up by nearly three seconds (1:55.23). Fazio also won the 1500 meters by more than two seconds with a time of 3:58.20. Teammate Grant O'Connor (West Hartford, CT / Hall) was second overall in the 22-person field with a time of 4:00.56). This is the third Liberty League Track Performer of the Week award of the season for Fazio, a two-time National All-America in indoor track. He helped the distance medley relay team to a National Championship and finished fourth in the 3000 meter run. He was the conference's Runner of the Year.

The majority of the Engineers return to action on Saturday in the Capital District Classic at RPI (10:30am). Fazio and 10 others will participate in The Penn Relays on Thursday or Friday. Ben Fazio runs in the 5000 meters on Thursday at 9:25pm, along with classmate Matthew Cicciu (Milford, MA / Milford).

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is America's oldest technological research university. For nearly two centuries, the Institute has been a driving force behind breakthroughs in engineering and science in virtually every arena-from transportation and infrastructure to business, medicine, outer space, and cyberspace.

As it approaches its bicentennial anniversary, the Institute continues to define The New Polytechnic, a new paradigm for teaching, learning, and research that uses advanced technologies to enable fresh collaborations across disciplines, sectors, and regions, in order to answer the global challenges of our day.