Dage Minors set a school record during his curtain call for Franklin Pierce University competing at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the weekend.

With his father Delbert Minors among those in attendance at the Irwin Belk Complex in Charlotte, the Bermudian runner placed fifth in the 800 metres final with a time of 1min 48.53sec. Minors already held his school’s 800 record, while his time was the fastest of his collegiate career.

The display earned the 22-year-old graduate student, who has a major in Sports and Recreation Management and is now pursuing a master’s degree in leadership, All-American First Team honours for the sixth time during an illustrious collegiate career.

He will be recognised for the accomplishment by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association this week. Thomas Staines, the Colorado State-Pueblo sophomore, clinched the 800 national title with a time of 1:46.56.

Minors started the new year off with a bang after becoming the first Bermudian to win the KPMG Front Street Mile elite men’s race in January. He then broke his own national indoor record after he ran the 800 in 1:47 at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational at the Boston University Track and Tennis Centre in February and romped to victory in the 1,500 at the Silfen Invitational at Connecticut College in April, hitting the tape in 3:52.

Minors achieved the qualifying standard to represent Bermuda at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia, competing at last year’s Princeton Larry Ellis Invitational in New Jersey.

However, he ruled himself out because of school commitments at Franklin Pierce, where he holds multiple individual indoor and outdoor records and was also a member of the school’s record-holding relay teams.