ACU men run away with title; women finish 2nd

Wildcat men win 3 national titles; women finish close runner-up

BOSTON, Mass. -- It was business as usual on Saturday for the Abilene Christian University men's track and field team, which cruised to the NCAA Division II indoor track and field championships at the Reggie Lewis Center.

It was also the ninth indoor championship in the last 10 years for the Wildcats and the 31st national track and field championship for the ACU men's program.  ACU has now won 52 team national championships in men's and women's track and field and 55 national team championships in all sports.

Head coach Jon Murray's men's team scored 84 points, its most since winning with 85 in 1999, to easily outdistance runner-up Adams State with 46.  Lincoln (Mo.) was third with 43.5.  Lincoln was also third in the women's division with 48 points.

The ACU women's team finished runner-up to rival St. Augustine's (N.C.) 53 to 48.5, with one individual title for the Wildcats.

"There were a lot of things going on all day today," Murray said. "We'd have a great moment, and then a bad moment.  Fortunately, we had more good moments than bad ones.  There were a lot of highlights, and a lot of national champions.  Our women really stepped up and performed well; it was a very exciting meet for them.  The men performed well and did what everyone kind of expected them to do, and that should propel us into the outdoor season."

Wins in the 400 meters by Marvin Essor, Lucky Hadebe in the 800 meters and Nicodemus Naimadu in the 5,000 meters, and a 2-3-4 finish in the triple jump propelled the ACU men to their fourth straight indoor title. 

St. Augustine's had the top four qualifying times in the 400 Friday, but one athlete was scratched before Saturday's final, and another pulled up lame during the race.  Essor took advantage of a slower pace, and clocked a 47.47 to win, edging St. Augustine's quartermiler Jamaal Torrance, who ran 47.50.  Essor's win was the first in the indoor 400 meters by a Wildcat since Jason Prann won in 1999.

Hadebe won the 800 in 1:50.18 in his first appearance in the national meet for Murray, and Naimadu, the cross country national champion last fall as a freshman, ran 13:59.64 to take the 5,000 in another first-time performance at the indoor meet.  Hadebe is the seventh ACU athlete to win the 800 meters indors, and it marked the 11th time in the last 13 years that a Wildcat has won the race.  Joseph Tengelei won the first 800 meters indoors by a Wildcat in 1993, and the only two years ACU has failed to win the title since were 1996 and 2000.

The 2-3-4 performance in the triple jump gave ACU 19 points.  Defending champion Yevgen Pashchenko was second at 51-5.5, Ben Washington was third at 51-3.75, and Vladyslav Gorbenko was fourth at 50-11.5.  Pashchenko won the long jump on Friday, one of four Wildcat men to win national championships on the weekend.

Also scoring Saturday for the ACU men were Cory Aguilar with a vault of 16-1.75 for sixth in the pole vault, Bernard Manirakiza (4:10.05 for sixth in the mile), Marvin Bien-Aime with 21.57 for second in the 200 meters, and the 1600 relay team (eighth at 3:19.40). 

In the relay, the Wildcats were leading heading into the third exchange when ACU's Ricardo Johnson was bumped from behind knocked down.  The Wildcats -- who had the best time in the nation heading into the meet -- weren't able to rally from the incident.

The only winner for the ACU women was Olha Kryv'yak, the favorite in the mile who responded with 4:49.96 for the victory.  Kryv'yak's time makes her the second-best indoor performer in school history, and she is just the second ACU female to win the indoor mile, joining Vivian Ruijters, who won the first title in 1997.

The Wildcat women also got points from Trina Cox with sixth in the mile at 4:54.40 and Adeh Mwamba, who ran 2:08.24 to narrowly miss a win in the 800.  Victoria Martinez of Adams State won with 2:08.17.  Mwamba's time is a school record, breaking the record of 2:08.77, set by Barbara Fleming in Austin in 1985.  The ACU women's 1600 relay team was third with 3:43.53.

The ACU men have also won the last three straight NCAA Division II national outdoor titles (and seven of the last nine), and the Wildcats will be host for the 2005 outdoor meet May 26-28 in Abilene.