|
EMPORIA, Kansas -- Angie Aguilar of Abilene Christian University became the first woman to win both the indoor and outdoor pole vault titles in NCAA Division II track and field at the national championships Friday at Welch Stadium.
Aguilar, junior from Midland Christian, dominated the competition. She won with only three vaults after making 12-2.5, 12-6.25 and 12-10.25 on her first attempts before missing three times at a meet record 13-2.25. She earlier won the indoor title March 11 in Boston.
Aguilar was Abilene Christian's first individual champion at the 2006 national meet. Her 10 points, along with eight from heptathlon runner-up Jessica Withrow, raised the ACU women's total to 23 points. That's fourth behind Grand Valley State (40), Adams State (37) and Mass-Lowell (25) going into Saturday's finals.
"Having won indoors gave me confidence," Aguilar said, "but at the same time it's a new meet, and you have to start all over."
She's the fourth women's outdoor vault champion from ACU in the eight years of NCAA women's pole vault. She has qualified for all six national meets in her career (indoors and outdoors as a freshman, sophomore and junior) with five all-America awards. And last week she set a new ACU record of 13-3.5 at the McMurry Twilight Open.
Withrow long jumped 18-6.5 and threw the javelin a personal best of 113-0 Friday to lead after six events of the heptathlon, but she narrowly trailed Adams State junior TiaNiecia Mosley in the 800, 2:20.65 to 2:21.46, to fall to second in the final overall standings.
RMAC champion Mosley, junior from Colorado Springs, Colo., won with 5,294 points to 5,291 for the ACU freshman, who turned in ACU's best finish ever in the NCAA heptathlon and came within 49 points of the ACU record of 5,340 set at the NCAA Division II meet in 1986 by Stacy Atkinson when she finished fourth.
Olha Kryv'yak was fourth (9:54.12) in the women's 3,000 in the only other final for the Wildcats on Friday.
Leading qualifiers included both 1600 relay teams (women in 3:39.05 behind Lincoln's 3:35.43, men in 3:09.44 behind the leading 3:08.80 by St. Augustine's) along with Nicodemus Naimadu in the 5,000 (leader in 14:50.01) and Martin Bien-Aime (leader in 20.95).
Other qualifiers were Kim Prather in the women's 200, Jordan Johnson in the men's 200, Denise Morgan in the women's 800 and Trina Cox in the women's 5,000.
The ACU men have just three points after the first two days of the meet, but are only 15 points behind the first--place team (Morehouse) going into Saturday. The Wildcats -- who have won four straight outdoor titles -- have qualified well and will have seven entires in five running events, as well as both relays and athletes in two field events.
|
