ACU to run at home for first time in 2005

Wildcats hosting 11 other schools at Oliver Jackson Open

ABILENE -- The ACU men's and women's track and field teams will host 11 other teams Saturday at the annual Oliver Jackson Open Track and Field Meet, the first of three times this season will run on their home track at Elmer Gray Stadium.

Saturday's meet will get started at 9 a.m. with the women's hammer throw and men's javelin.  The running events will start at 1 p.m. with the women's 4x100 relay.

Aside from the two ACU teams, other schools represented at the meet will be Angelo State, Tarleton State and Eastern New Mexico from the Lone Star Conference, McMurry, Howard Payne, Howard Payne and Sul Ross State from the American Southwest Conference, as well as Lewis (Ill.), UT-Permian Basin, Southwestern Christian, Wayland Baptist and South Plains College.

This is the second meet of the outdoor season for the Wildcats, who last weekend saw athletes compete at both the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., as well as the Baylor / Dr Pepper Invitational in Waco. 

The Wildcats qualified 13 athletes for the NCAA Division II outdoor national championship meet at those two meets, including automatic qualifiers in Lucky Hadebe in the men's 1500 meters, Nicodemus Naimadu in the men's 5000 meters and Adeh Mwamba in the women's 1500 meters.  All three of those athletes were competing at Stanford and each finished in the top five in their race against mostly NCAA Division I fields.

Naimadu was second in the 5000 meters with a time of 13:39.37, which makes him the seventh-fastest performer in NCAA Division II history in the event.  Mwamba was third in the 1500 meters in 4:21.61, while Hadebe was fifth in the men's 1500 meters at 3:44.03.

The Wildcats posted three provisional qualifiers at Stanford in Laurant Ngirakamaro in the men's 10,000 meters (29:26.25), while Olha Kryv'yak (sixth in the women's 1500 meters in 4:28.50) Trina Cox (fifth in the women's 3000-meter steeplechase in 10:26.28) also provisionally qualified.

At Baylor, ACU's top three pole vaulters - Angie Aguilar, Katie Eckley and Val Gorter - finished 1-2-3, respectively, and all three provisionally qualified for the national meet.  Aguilar won the vault with a mark of 12-5.50, while Eckley and Gorter tied for second at 11-11.75.

Also provisionally qualifying on the women's side was Shawna-Kaye Thompson in the 100 meters (third in 11.73).

On the men's side, Cory Aguilar joined his wife in winning an event, taking the men's pole vault with a mark fo 16-0.75 to provisionally qualify.  Marvin Bien-Aime -- second earlier this month in the 200 meters at the NCAA Division II indoor championship meet -- provisionally qualified for the outdoor championship meet in the 200 meters, turning in a time of 21.48 to finish second.  And junior Delt Cockrell finished fourth in the 400 meters in 47.53 to provisionally qualify.

Next weekend the Wildcats will run at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, and the next weekend will compete in the David Noble / Angelo State Relays in San Angelo.  The Lone Star Conference meet is set for April 22-23 in San Angelo, followed by the ACU Open on May 12 at Elmer Gray Stadium and then the outdoor championship meet, May 26-28, at Elmer Gray Stadium.

ALL-AMERICA CITY TRACK CLASSIC
Once again this year, ACU will host the All-America City Track Classic for at Elmer Gray Stadium on Friday, April.

The girls-only meet will begin at 2:30 p.m. Friday with Division I high jump, Division II long jump, Division I shot put and Division II discus.  The running events will begin at 3 p.m. with both divisions of the 3200-meter run.

The Division I field consists of Abilene High, Abilene Cooper, San Angelo Central, Snyder, San Angelo Lakeview, Brownwood, Big Spring, Killeen Ellison, Copperas Cove, Odessa Permian, Odessa High, Midland Lee, Midland High, Lubbock Estacado and Lubbock Coronado.

The Division II field consists of Lubbock Coronado JV, Odessa High JV, Odessa Permian JV, Brownwood JV, Wichita Falls Hirschi, Abilene High JV, Abilene Wylie, Abilene Wylie JV, Reagan County, Coleman, San  Angelo Central JV, Killeen Ellison JV, Cooper JV and Merkel.