Wildcats look to continue LSC dominance
ACU men, women will be favored to win track titles
KINGSVILLE -- The ACU men's and women's track and field teams will try to their dominating legacy this weekend as they compete at the Lone Star Conference track and field championships at Javelina Stadium on the Texas A&M-Kingsville campus.
The meet will get started Friday at 3 p.m. with men's and women's field events and running preliminaries at 6 p.m. Saturday's schedule starts at noon with more field events, and then running finals at 5 p.m. The LSC added the heptathlon and the decathlon to this year's championship, and those events were contested last month at the Angelo State David Noble Relays. The ASU women will go into this weekend's meet with a 23-point lead on the competition after finishing 1-2-5 in the heptathlon, and the ASU men will go into the meet with an 18-point lead on the field after finishing 1-2 in the decathlon.
The ACU women will try to keep one of the most remarkable streaks in NCAA Division II sports alive as theygo for their 21st straight conference title. The ACU women have won every LSC track and field title since the league began hosting a women's championship meet in 1983. The only crown the Wildcats didn't claim in that stretch was in 1995 when the meet was called off because of inclement weather at the host site (Oklahoma City).
The ACU men, meanwhile, will try to run their conference-title streak to 11 during the weekend. ACU has won 19 overall men's track and field titles, and has only been severely challenged once (23-point margin of victory over Angelo State in 2001) during that stretch. The Wildcats, who have won the last five straight NCAA Division II men's track and field titles, beat Angelo State by 103 points last year in Abilene, their third-largest margin of victory ever.
ACU's domination on the women's side will be severely tested by an Angelo State team that almost upset the Wildcats at Elmer Gray Stadium in 2003. The Rambelles -- who have finished as the LSC runner-up 17 times during ACU's current 20-year winning streak -- finished just five points behind ACU (193-188) last year.
The Wildcats will be in Kingsville without senior Sofi Hildenborg, who chose to remain in Abilene and go through Saturday's graduation ceremony. Hildenborg is the two-time defending LSC champion in the 200 meters, and she also won the 100 meters in 2002. She also ran on both relay teams, leaving ACU head coach Jon Murray with a decision to make on who fills her spot on the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams.
ACU, though, should rack up points in the pole vault where Val Gorter, Katie Eckley and Angie Aguilar form perhaps the top female pole-vault trio in the nation. Gorter won the pole vault at last year's LSC championship (12-11.50), and she is currently the top-ranked vaulter in NCAA Division II with her Division II all-time best performance of 13-3.00. Eckley is ranked No. 2 in the nation at 13-2.50, and Aguilar is eighth at 12-3.50.
Angelo State will counter ACU's top three with Cortni Cioni (fifth in Division II with a mark of 12-6.00) and Emily Paratore (18th in Division II with a mark of 11-9.75).
The Wildcats figure to get big points from freshman Liga Klavina, who won the NCAA Division II indoor championship in the shot put, and is the top-ranked shot-putter outdoors with a mark of 47-10.50. Klavina will also compete in the long jump, 100-meter hurdles and javelin, and with her background in the heptathlon (she is one of the top-ranked heptathletes in the world), she will be accustomed to competing in several different events.
Junior Adeh Mwamba -- who won five individual national championships at the junior college level -- figures to give the Wildcats big points in the 800 meters, 1500 meters, 3000 meters and 5000 meters. Olha Kryv'yak will compete in the same four events, and the Wildcats' dominance of the distance events should give them a big advantage over the rest of the field, which includes Angelo State, Texas A&M-Commerce, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Eastern New Mexico and Tarleton State.
Mwamba is ranked No. 2 in the nation in the 1500 meters (4:25.49) and No. 4 in the 5000 meters (16:31.54), while Kryv'yak is ranked No. 4 in the nation in the 3000 meters (9:49.68). Senior Stephanie Warren should be a major factor in three events -- triple jump, high jump and long jump -- as she goes into the conference meet as the odds-on favorite to win both the high jump (ranked No. 2 in the nation at 5-10.00) and the triple jump (ranked No. 3 in the nation at 40-8.25).
The ACU men go into the conference championship meet as the favorite to extend its conference-title streak to 11 straight years. The Wildcats' streak began in 1993 with the only interruption coming in 1995 when iclement weather at the host site (Oklahoma City) forced the meet to be cancelled. Angelo State has finished as the runner-up to the Wildcats nine times in the current 10-year ACU winning streak, and 17 times in the 19 years ACU has won the title. Prior to ACU's 10-year winning streak, Angelo State won four straight titles from 1989-92. In fact, the last team to win an LSC title besides ACU (1978-81, 1984-88, 1993-2003) or Angelo State (1972, 1974, 1976-77, 1982-83, 1989-92) since the two schools joined the league was Howard Payne, which won in 1973 and 1975 and is no longer part of the conference.
The Wildcats will also be without one of its top athletes as Manuel Brandeborn will stay in Abilene as he and his wife, Hildenborg, graduate from ACU. Brandeborn is the defending conference champion in the hammer throw, and is currently ranked No. 2 in the nation in the discus throw (183-5.00) and seventh in the shot put (56-0.50). The 2002 outdoor national champion in the shot put, Brandeborn won the shot put and the discus at the 2002 LSC championship meet.
The ACU men have strength and depth throughout its roster with athletes qualified for the national meet in seven individual running events, both relays and five field events.
Bernard Manirakiza will be the odds-on favorite to defend his conference titles in both the 800 meters and 1500 meters, and he'll also compete for the first time this season in the 5000 meters. Manirakiza -- the defending NCAA Division II outdoor national champ in the 800 meters and 1500 meters -- is ranked No. 2 in the nation in the 800 meters and No. 3 in the nation in the 1500 meters.
Martin O'Kello -- ranked No. 6 in the nation in the 800 meters and No. 5 in the nation in the 1500 meters -- will compete in the same three events as Manirakiza, giving the Wildcats the opportunity to rack up points in those events. Vincent Morogah, Denis Olinga and Justin Thompson will also compete in the 5000 meters, while Morogah and Olinga will run in the 10,000 metes as the Wildcats try to score big points in the distance events.
Senior sprinter Christie VanWyk -- the 2001 LSC champion in the 100 meters and 200 meters -- will compete in the LSC meet for the final time, and he'll compete in the 100 meters and 200 meters and run on the Wildcats' 4x100 relay team. Marvin Bien-Aime will join VanWyk in the 100 meters, while Delt Cockrell and Elton Garus-Oab will join VanWyk and Bien-Aime in the 200 meters. VanWyk is ranked No. 2 in the nation in the 100 meters and No. 12 in the 200 meters, while Bien-Aime is ranked No. 7 in the 100 meters and No. 15 in the 200 meters.
The 4x100 relay could be one of the best races of the day with three of the competing teams ranked in the top five in NCAA Division II -- Texas A&M-Kingsville at No. 2 (39.74), Texas A&M-Commerce at No. 4 (40.29) and ACU at No. 5 (40.43).
Junior Ben Washington -- who has competed just twice during the outdoor season because of an ankle injury suffered in the outdoor season's first meet -- will be in Kingsville to defend his LSC title in the triple jump, and he'll be joined in the event by teammate Yevgen Pashchenko, who won the indoor title in the event and is ranked No. 1 in the nation outdoors. Pashchenko was second in the triple jump and fourth in the long jump at last year's LSC meet, and he'll be among the favorites to win both events this weekend.
Sophomore Cory Aguilar will return to defend his LSC pole vault title (16-5.50 in 2003), and he will also compete in the 400-meter hurdles. Aguilar is currently ranked No. 4 in the nation in the pole vault at 16-10.75.
