A year ago, Michael LeBlanc sat in an ice bath nursing the lower back injury he suffered at his national championship track and field meet during his senior year in high school. He watched as his teammates ran around Manley Field House, while he struggled through rehab.

Friday, with memories of 13 months of recovery long behind him, LeBlanc will walk to the starting line of the 66-meter dash with a shot at becoming an All-American.

LeBlanc received one of 16 invitations to compete at the NCAA Championship meet in Fayetteville, Ark., March 9-10. If he places in the top eight by making it to the finals, LeBlanc will be named an All-American runner. He currently holds the Big East record in the 60-meter dash, 6.71 seconds, which he set earlier this season during the Big East Championship preliminary race.

LeBlanc redshirted his freshman year because of his back injury, which took him more than a year to recover from and caused him not to compete last season.

‘It took a lot of patience to get over my injury,’ LeBlanc said. ‘I did tons of exercises and stretching, saw chiropractors and therapist. It was a grueling process that took a lot of time. So this season compared to last is amazing.’

March 4, at the IC4A Championships, LeBlanc won the 55-meter dash, where he broke the meet record and finished 0.19 seconds ahead of teammate Aulton Kohn. At the Penn State National Open, he ran a time of 6.67 seconds in the 60-meter, a time fast enough to qualify him for the NCAA meet.

‘I’ve had a very successful season, but I don’t want to rest on anything,’ LeBlanc said. ‘I have to remain focused in order to do well. I feel like getting to the NCAA meet is a feat in itself, but doing well once I’m there is going to be a whole other battle.’

Syracuse assistant coach David Hegland attributes LeBlanc’s success to being mentally strong and confident.

‘Everyone is so talented when you are talking about meets like the NCAAs,’ Hegland said. ‘The mental component of the race becomes even larger than in every normal day competitions. Everyone’s seed time will be less than a second apart. Everyone is going in thinking they have a shot.

‘Michael is very mentally strong. I feel good about him and think he can do big things this weekend.’

LeBlanc has been working on his confidence since the preseason. After fully recovering from his injury, he ran a few races during the summer in order to gage where he was in need of training. After taking two weeks off, he started training again in September by doing strengthening activities like running up and down hills or lifting in the weight room.

Once the winter season began, LeBlanc started working on acceleration drills and fine-tuning certain aspects of his race.

‘At this point there is not too much more we can do to train Michael for this race,’ Hegland said. ‘All the work has been done. He needs to rest up a little and get ready to go mentally and just run fast, be aggressive, and be competitive.’

Hegland said the entire Orange track and field program would rejoice in LeBlanc’s success if he becomes an All-American because it reflects on the growing strength of the program.

‘My primary goal is to get into the finals,’ LeBlanc said. ‘These are the best athletes in the country; the caliber of talent is just amazing. This is probably one of the fastest races in the world. I just want to be an All-American.’

Published on March 7, 2007 at 12:00 pm