PITMAN, N.J.  (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | For the second time this season, New Jersey City University freshman Dave Etienne (Jersey City, NJ/Dickinson) of the Gothic Knight men's indoor track and field team has been named the New Jersey Athletic Conference Rookie of the Week, the conference office announced on March 4. The award is for week 11 of the 2018-19 season—the first season NJCU has sponsored men's and women's indoor track and field since the 2009-10 campaign.
 
Etienne, who previously won the award in week five (January 21), made the transition from men's volleyball—where he was an ECAC Rookie of the Week last year—to track this season and that transformation culminated with him winning the individual crown in the 200 meters on March 2 in the 2019 Eastern College Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championship at the New Balance Track & Field Center in New York City.
 
Etienne won the 200, then came back on an hour's rest to place second overall in the 400 meters. Etienne, who ran the second leg of NJCU's 4x200-meter relay on day one of the championship, helped the Gothic Knights score 19 total points in the program's first meet. NJCU placed 14th overall among 26 schools that scored at least one point in the championship.
 
Etienne, a 6-foot-0 Criminal Justice major, clocked 22.41 seconds in the 200 to take first place among eight finalists in the event—4/100th of a second faster than Micke Van Gieson of Salisbury University (22.45). He scored 10 points with the first-place finish.
 
An hour later in the 400-meter finals, Etienne registered a personal-best mark of 49.91 seconds to secure eight more points for NJCU, taking second among seven finalists. Van Gieson won the event for Salisbury (49.35).
 
On March 1 on the opening day of the meet, he also ran the second leg of a 4x200-meter relay tandem that clocked a season-best time of 1:34.36, to place eighth out of the 11 finalists and score one point in the team standings.
 
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