Men's Track and Field | 5/31/2018 8:52:00 AM

CoSIDA Release | Last Call for June 4th LGR! Golf Tournament

TROY, N.Y. - The 2018 Google Cloud Academic All-District Men's Track & Field/Cross Country teams, selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), have been announced and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) student-athletes Malcolm Porterfield and Matt Vitagliano have been chosen to the NCAA Division III - District 3 (NY) squad. They both advance to the Google Cloud Academic All-America ballot, with first- and second-team Academic All-America honorees to be announced in June.

Porterfield (Albany, NY / Albany), a graduate student, participates in throws, including the hammer, weight throw, shot put and discus.

He won the hammer at the Liberty League Outdoor Championship Meet in early May with a throw of 47.99 meters - a season-best. He was the runner-up in the same event at the Capital District Classic the week before (47.80) and he finished third at the University of Albany in mid-April (46.57). Porterfield qualified for the All-Atlantic Region Meet in the hammer, reaching 43.19 meters to place 15th. He was fifth at the 2017 New York State Championship (48.43).

The mechanical engineering major with an economics minor carries a 3.89 graduate student grade point average after earning a 3.84 as an undergrad. He earned Dean's List four times and was a multiple conference All-Academic honoree. He was chosen to the 2018 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars Track & Field First Team by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine. He was a semifinalist in 2017.

Porterfield received the Garnet D. Baltimore Rensselaer Award and Scholarship for Minority Students in the Fall of 2015 before earning a Graduate Fellowship for the 2017-18 academic year. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi - The Engineering Honor Society as well as Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, the international honor society of two-year colleges and academic programs. He graduated from Hudson Valley Community College prior to attending Rensselaer.

A senior, Vitagliano (Clear Brook, VA / James Wood) is now a three-time Google Cloud Academic All-District selection and both previous times he went on to earn Google Cloud National Academic All-America.

A jumper, he concluded his athletic career last week when he earned National All-America in the triple jump with a seventh place finish (14.82 meters) at the NCAA Championship Meet. Vitagliano was also an All-America during the indoor season with a fourth place effort (14.87 meters). During the 2017-18 campaign, he won in the triple jump five times, including both the Liberty League indoor and outdoor championships, and was second once. He also finished second in the long jump once.

During his career, Vitagliano earned 17 first place finishes, including 14 in the triple jump and three in the long jump. He is a five-time Liberty League Meet triple jump champion, including this season when he set the conference and Rensselaer outdoor records at 14.98 meters. Three of those career conference titles came outdoors, along with three other wins. Eight triple jump wins were in indoor meets. Vitagliano won the long jump in three indoor events, including the conference meet once. He earned 10 Performer of the Week certificates and was the Liberty League Indoor Field Performer of the Year this season.

Academically, the electrical engineering major has a 3.89 cumulative GPA. He was a Google Cloud National Academic All-America Third Team selection in 2016 and a Second Team choice in 2017. Vitagliano, a multiple Dean's List and Liberty League All-Academic honoree, is a member of Eta Kappa Nu Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society.

A former intern with Westinghouse Electric Company (2017), he has accepted a full-time position with Northrop Grumman Corporation.