ACU begins quest for pair of national titles
5/22/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Track & Field
ACU men favored to win title; women will be in hunt
Men looking for season sweep; women will be in title mix
SAN ANGELO -- ACU hasn't won an outdoor national championship in track and field in two years, but that could all change this weekend at the NCAA Division II outdoor championship meet with the ACU men favored to win the title and the women in the mix for the crown.
The meet will get started Thursday with the first day of both the heptathlon and decathlon, as well as several running event preliminaries. The first day of the meet will wrap up with the men's and women's 10,000-meter races.
Friday will be the conclusion of the heptathlon and decathlon, as well as more running preliminaries and field-event finals. Saturday's action won't start until 6 p.m. with the women's pole vault among several field event and running finals.
ACU will be well-represented at the meet in San Angelo with 33 athletes qualifying to compete at the meet
The Wildcats will be the prohibitive favorites to win the men's title with 17 athletes qualified in 15 events, as well as the 4x100 relay. ACU won the NCAA Division II indoor championship in March and will be looking for their fifth outdoor crown in the last seven years this weekend.
"We have the numbers to do very well this weekend," ACU head coach Jon Murray said of his men's team. "Really, we have the numbers to win the meet. Now it's just a matter of everyone competing and doing what they've done all year long."
ACU's individual national championship contenders are many, led by John Kemboi, who enters as the top-ranked half-miler and 1500-meter runner in the field. Kemboi has won eight individual national championships, and could join elite company this weekend with a pair of wins in those two races.
If he can defend his outdoor national titles in the 800 meters and 1500 meters, he will join the great Bobby Morrow with the most career individual national championships (10) won by an ACU athlete.
ACU's other national championship contenders on the men's side are Terrance Woods in both the triple jump and high jump, Manuel Brandeborn in the shot put, Nic Alexander in the 100 meters and Richard Phillips in the 110-meter hurdles.
Woods is a five-time national champion and seven-time all-America performer who won both the high jump and triple jump at the NCAA Division II indoor national championship meet in March. His high jump mark of 7-4.50 established a new school record, which he later tied on May 4 at the UTA Open in Arlington.
He has been a part of six national championship teams, and in his four years, the Wildcats never lost an indoor national championship meet.
Brandeborn had one of the top throws in the nation and will be a contender after a fifth-place finish at the indoor championship meet in Boston. Alexander won both the 100 meters and 200 meters as a freshman in 2000, and after spending much of the last 18 months injured, is finally starting to round back into the form that has made him a four-time national champion (55 meters at 2000 indoor, 100 and 200 meters and 4x100 relay at 2000 outdoor).
Phillips finished a surprising fourth in the 60-meter hurdles at the indoor championship meet in March, but has posted solid times throughout the spring in both the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles, making him a contender in both races.
Unlike last year when ACU didn't score a single field-event point on its way to a disappointing runner-up finish, the Wildcats should score heavily in the field events with Brandeborn (shot put and discus throw), Woods, Tarrant Fuller (long jump), Shawn Nelson (long jump), Shai Shalev (shot put), Ben Washington (triple jump) and Seth Westmoreland (pole vault).
The Wildcats scored all 59 of their points at last year's meet in the running events, and they could be even stronger in the running events this year.
Alexander and Christie VanWyk lead the sprint group, which also includes sophomore transfer Rodney Pitts, who will run the 100 meters and then join Alexander, VanWyk and David Jones on the 4x100 relay team, which enters the meet with the second-best time in the nation (40.25).
The middle distance races, though, should belong to ACU with Kemboi, Jean-Marie Ndukimana, Bernard Manirakiza and Martin O'Kello all qualified for both the 800 meters and 1500 meters. Arthemon Sindayigaya should score in both the 5000 meters and 10,000 meters, and Nick Branen could earn some points in the 3000-meter Steeplechase.
The ACU women, meanwhile, should be contenders for the championship after getting 16 athletes qualified in 12 events, as well as both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. ACU has won the outdoor championship nine times, but hasn't finished on top since 1999. The Wildcats were second in 2000 and fourth last year.
"On paper, we're within two points of winning the meet," Murray said. "It's going to be a very close meet with a lot of great competition. Whichever team gets the breaks will be the team that leaves Saturday night with the championship trophy."
Unlike last year when ACU's women's team at the national meet was comprised of mainly field-event personnel, this year's squad will have athletes competing in nine running events and four field events, as well as the heptathlon.
The national championship contenders on the women's side are the usual suspects in senior pole vaulter Meredith Garner and senior high jumper Maresa Cadienhead.
Garner owns the NCAA Division II all-time best with her mark of 13-1.75, set April 19 at the Lone Star Conference championships in Commerce. That broke the previous record of 13-1.50, also set by Garner at the 2000 outdoor championship meet in Raleigh, N.C.
Earlier this year, she became only the second NCAA Division II woman to ever have won both an indoor and outdoor national championship in a career, joining teammate Jane McNeill. She won her first indoor championship in March when she vaulted 12-3.50 inches to win the title.
Cadienhead has put together a very impressive career, one that could leave her as one of the greatest female athletes in ACU track and field history. She will be favored to add a fourth national championship in the high jump this weekend, which would tie her with former ACU greats Marlene Lewis and Yolanda Henry for the third-most field-event national championships won by a Wildcat female.
She captured her third individual national championship in Boston in March at the Division II indoor national championship meet with a jump of 6-2.75 inches, which set a new indoor school record. She has not lost a high jump competition this year, winning 10 straight meets. In fact, the last time she lost a high jump competition was April 26, 2001, when she finished second at the 107th Penn Relays. Since that second-place finish, she has won all 12 meets in which she has entered.
This year she added the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays and Penn Relays championships to her resume, knocking off mostly NCAA Division I fields at both meets.
Other national championship contenders for the women are Alice Bergstrom (heptathlon), Jane McNeill (pole vault), Katie Eckley (pole vault), Sofi Hildenborg (200 meters) and Angie Waters (800 meters).
McNeill is the defending outdoor national champion in the pole vault, and that championship win made her the first NCAA Division II woman to ever win an indoor title (1999) and outdoor (2001) in a career. Eckley, a freshman from California, had the nation's fourth-best vault entering the meet and seems to be fully recovered from a stress fracture in her right leg.
Bergstrom posted the nation's second-best heptathlon score during the season, winning the Angelo State Multi-Event meet with 5,091 points. However, defending national champion Meredith Davis of Morningside posted the nation's best mark with 5,504 points and will be tough to beat. Also contending for the heptathlon championship will be ACU's Shauna-Gaye Stephens, who is ranked ninth entering the meet.
Hildenborg has made the most dramatic improvement this season for the Wildcats. After not qualifying at all last year for the outdoor meet, she qualified in the 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters and on both relay teams. She had the nation's top time in the 200 meters (23.66) and will compete in that event as well as on both relay teams. At the LSC championship meet last month, she won the 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters and anchored the sprint relay team to a win.
Waters will contend for the national championship in the 800 meters after posting the nation's 10th-best time during the year (2:09.81). Her personal best time is just one second off the ACU school record, and Murray thinks she could break that mark at the national meet. She will also run on the Wildcats' 4x400 relay team, as will Hildenborg, Marichea Austin (also in the 400 meters) and Elricia Francis (also in the 200 meters and 400 meters).
Freshman Kimone Campbell will run the 200 meters and then join Hildenborg, Austin and Francis on the 4x100 relay team. Freshman Cassie Chaffin will run the 3000 meters, and Justine Nahimana will compete in the 10,000 meters Thursday night. Junior Wendy Seitz will run the 400 hurdles, while Stephens will also compete in the long jump and the 100 hurdles.
Freshman Val Gorter, who vaulted 11-8.50 on May 9 at the ACU Open, will give ACU four pole vaulters at the national meet, while Lakeshia Finch should score points in the triple jump.
