ACU men take lead into Day 3
5/22/2009 2:52:14 AM | Track & Field
SAN ANGELO -- The ACU men will try to win a record-breaking eighth straight NCAA Division II outdoor track and field championship Saturday at the LeGrand Sports Complex, but they'll need almost everything to go right if they're to pull it off.
The ACU women's team, meanwhile, will have to have almost total perfection just to finish in the top 10.
The ACU men lead the team race with 25 points, just ahead of rival St. Augustine's, which is second with 22 points. The Wildcats have a slew of athletes in field-event finals on Saturday and a handful of athletes in running-event finals, giving them a chance to win the title.
The ACU women, meanwhile, enter Saturday's final day of competition without a single point to their credit, possibly the first time in meet history that the defending national champion has gone to the final day without scoring a point in the first two days.
The women's 4x400 relay team redeemed what had been a largely disappointing day with a season-best performance in the preliminaries for the mile relay. Running the last two legs, Azraa Rounds and Kim Prather, brought the Wildcats back from fifth place to first place in the first heat.
Rounds gave the stick to Prather with the Wildcats in fourth place, and the junior from St. Louis churned around the track, taking the lead within the first 150 meters of her leg and hanging on for the win as ACU turned in a season-best time of 3:43.90.
Other than that performance, however, the ACU women suffered through a disappointing day. Neither Prather nor Wanda Hutson qualified for Saturday's 200 meter final, and ACU didn't get any points out of triple-jumpers Amanda Clemons or Destinee Nixon or Callie Young in the pole vault.
The Wildcats will send Prather and Rounds to Saturday's final in the 400 meters, and will also see Winrose Karunde in the 5000 meter final. Both relay teams will compete in Saturday's finals, and Hutson will run in the 100 meter final. Defending national champion and Division II record-holder Linda Brivule will compete in the javelin, while sophomore Paige Newby will compete in the discus.
The ACU men also posted a strong performance in the 4x400 relay, finishing second in their heat behind St. Augustine's, which earlier this year broke ACU's all-time Division II record with a time of 3:02.1. The Falcons coasted to a time 3:08.16, while the Wildcats finished in 3:10.17.
Also qualifying for Saturday's finals were Andrew McDowell in the 110 hurdles and Amos Sang and Daniel Maina in the 5000 meters. The Wildcats will also send out Jordan Johnson in the 400 meters and Maina in the steeplechase. Both relays will also compete in finals on Saturday, while Nick Jones -- who finished seventh Friday in the shot put -- will defend his national championship in the discus.
ACU could also rack up big points with solid performances in the triple jump and the pole vault. Ramon Sparks, Idiato Jeremiah and Gerald Chenyi will compete in the triple jump, while Stephen Toler, Cory Altenberg, Aaron Cantrell, Camille Vandendriessche and Landon Ehlers will be int he pole vault.
Earlier Friday, senior Camille Vandendriessche won his third straight national championship in the decathlon, posting a career-best 7,674 points and giving ACU 10 points.
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