Wildcats win national title
5/28/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Track & Field
ACU men, Lincoln women win national titles
ACU men capture five titles on final day
ABILENE -- The Abilene Christian University men and the Lincoln University women repeated as NCAA Division II outdoor national champions Saturday night at the championship meet at ACU's Elmer Gray Stadium.
The ACU men -- who won the title with 109 points, 25 better than runner-up Adams State -- captured their fourth straight outdoor championship and 15th NCAA Division II outdoor championship overall. The national title was ACU's 53rd overall national track and field championship.
"This was a great weekend for our guys," ACU head coach Jon Murray said. "They worked really hard to get ready to win this meet, and that hard work paid off. We had really good performances all weekend, and finished it off in style by winning the (4x400) relay."
The Lincoln women won their third straight national championship with 108 points to 53 points for runner-up Cal State-Bakersfield. The ACU women finished third with 45.50 points, while St. Augustine's was fourth with 42 points. All the teams weathered a rain delay that postponed the meet for one hour early in the evening.
The ACU men got final-day victories from Nicodemus Naimadu (3000 steeplechase and 5000 meters), Marvin Essor (400 meters), Marvin Bien-Aime (200 meters) and in the 4x400 relay. The win in the 1600 relay was anchored by Delt Cockrell's 46.2 anchor leg, and gave ACU its first 1600 relay outdoor national title since 1997.
The ACU women didn't have a national championship in the meet, but Trina Cox (3000 steeplechase) and Olha Kryv'yak (1500 meters) each finished second, while Angie Aguilar tied for third in the pole vault (12-6.00).
Naimadu was the male running star of the meet with dual victories, giving him four individual national champions in the school year: cross country last November, 5000 meters in March at the indoor meet and two on Saturday night.
"I was able to win the steeplechase by a good margin, but this was a very competitive race (5000 meters) and our hard practices paid off," Naimadu said. "I have been working very hard for this competition with the idea that we train hard to win easy."
Essor was a standout for the Wildcats as well with his win in the 400 meters, becoming the first ACU male athlete since Kempa Busby in 1997 to win the 400 meters both indoors and outdoors.
"I was expecting to win the event," Essor said. "I got out casual as usual and I never expected the guys out in front of me to get to us so soon. That made me run my second 200 faster, so it worked out for me in the end. This was a great way to end my last year... undefeated and a two-time national champion. I couldn't have ended it any better."
Bien-Aime, who finished second in the 200 meters last year as a freshman and was second indoors in this year's 200 meters, closed out his win in the last 10 meters, coming from third place to national champion in just a few strides.
"I came in confident, but due to the weather, I ran tight the whole race and didn't get a chance to relax and work on the phases of the race," Bien-Aime said. "In the last 50 meters, I tried to accelerate, but I did it running tight. If I hadn't been tight, the time would have been faster."
For Lincoln, Shandria Brown was a double-winner in the 100 meters and 200 meters for the third straight year, and she anchored the 4x100 relay team to its fourth straight victory with the best time of the season in Division II (44.81).
Lincoln scored 53 points in three events: 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 hurdles to overtake Cal State-Bakersfield, which finished second with 53 points (all from throwers), and held the lead until Lincoln scored 21 points in the 100 meters to give the Lady Blue Tigers a 57-53 lead. Lincoln would not be touched the rest of the way as it scored the most points by a championship team since ACU scored 145 points in 1999, the last time the Wildcats won the outdoor national title.
ACU's chances at the 2005 title slipped away when senior pole vaulters Katie Eckley and Val Gorter no-heighted. The Wildcats got just 5.5 points in the event from Aguilar, who finished tied for third. Chaunte Mitchell of Cal State-Stanislaus won the event with a mark of 13-1.75.
The Wildcats also got just one point out of the 800 meters when Adeh Mwamba finished eighth and Denise Morgan ninth.
Earlier in the day in the throwing events, Cal State-Bakersfield continued its dominanation of those events with two more national championships in both the men's and women's hammer throws.
Senior Chris Figures -- the men's national athlete of the year -- dominated the field in the hammer throw as he won the competition with a mark of 213-5.00, 17 feet in front of runner-up Cole Sprague of Cal State-Stanislaus. Figures was part of Friday's historic shot-put competition, which saw him finish as the runner-up to Northwest Missouri State's Clint Prange.
On the women's side, April Burton -- the women's national athlete of the year -- won her second national championship of the meet with a win in the hammer. Burton beat teammate, Cecilia Barnes, with a throw of 205-11, while Barnes threw 191-1.00. CSUB's Casandra Kirk threw 180-7.00 to finish fifth.
Over the three days of competition, Cal State Bakersfield's men's and women's throwers combined to win four national championships, finish second in four events and score 85 points.
In the women's javelin, Augustana freshman Jen Buyske won her first national championship with a throw of 156-9.00, while Jon Rozborski of Cal State-Chico won the men's javelin with a throw of 226-10.
