|
ABILENE - The ACU men's and women's track and field teams have qualified 16 athletes and four relay teams for this weekend's NCAA Division II indoor championship meet.
The Wildcats join the rest of the NCAA Division II field at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston this weekend at the indoor championship meet.
The ACU men will try to extend their national championship streak to nine straight titles with six individuals in six events and two relay teams (4x400 relay and distance medley relay). The women's team, meanwhile, will try to win its first national title since winning the 2000 indoor championship by sending 10 individuals in eight events and two relays.
"I'm really excited to see how we perform," ACU first-year head coach Don D. Hood said. "We've got a shot at making a run at both championships."
The men don't have the numbers they had in 2005 when they sent 13 individual athletes in eight events to the meet, but Hood said he believes this year's group has a good chance to win the national championship.
"We've got a group going that will give us a chance to win the national championship," Hood said. "We've got a lot of guys who are seeded a little low who need to rise up and meet the challenge. We'll score somewhere between 45 and 60 points, and that should be enough to give us a chance to win."
Hood and the rest of the ACU coaching staff were shocked when the final qualfier list came out and it didn't include ACU senior pole vaulter Cory Aguilar, who was sixth at last year's indoor meet. Aguilar cleared 16-0.00 earlier this season, but that missed the final qualifier list by one-half inch.
The Wildcats also won't have an 800-meter runner in the race, and that's an event ACU has dominated at the national meet in recent year. An ACU runner, in fact, has won the 800 meters indoors in 11 of the past 12 years, including in each year from2001-2005.
ACU, however, will have perhaps the most dominating male track athlete in NCAA Division II track and field at the meet in the form of Nicodemus Naimadu, the defending national champion in the 5000 meters.
Naimadu takes the nation's top 5000 meter time (13:42.29) into the meet, and he will also run on the Wildcats' distance medley relay. Naimadu will also run the mile for the Wildcats, having qualified as the No. 8 seed (4:08.68) in the race. Naimadu is only two seconds off the nation's best time, however.
Also qualifying for the meet on the men's side were Yevgen Pashchenko (triple jump and long jump), Vladyslav Gorbenko (triple jump), Marvin Bien-Aime (200 meters), Delt Cockrell (400 meters) and Montez Pride (400 meters).
Bien-Aime is the reigning 200-meter outdoor national champion, and he was second at the distance at last year's indoor meet.
On the women's side, four athletes qualified in dual events, led by seniors Olha Kryv'yak and Trina Cox, who both qualified for the mile and the 5000 meters. Freshman Kim Prather qualified for the 60 meters and the 200 meters, while Shawna-Kaye Thompson qualified in the 60 hurdles and the 200 meters.
Freshman Jessica Withrow qualified in the high jump, while junior Angie Aguilar qualified as the No. 2 pole vaulter after clearing 12-10.25 earlier this season. Another freshman, Azraa Rounds, qualified in the 400 meters, giving ACU three qualifiers in the 400 \meters (Brooklyn Hunt is the other qualifier). ACU also qualified three athletes in the 200 meters with Jessica Hunt joining Prather and Thompson on the qualifying list.
"We've got enough girls going to make a strong run at winning the national championship," Hood said.
|
