Spring Sports Round-Up

The Lincoln women posted a four-point win over second-place Adams State, while Abilene Christian won its' third straight men's championship on Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College's Hilmer Lodge Stadium. Both the men's and women's divisions came down to the final event of the day, the 4x400 relay.

Lincoln won the women's 4x400 in 3:39.23 with the quartet of Lileith Sims, Marlene Smith, Kelly Marshall and Moya Thompson. The team immediately broke into chants of "back-to-back, back-to-back."

Shandria Brown repeated in both the women's 100m and 200m, which went a long way toward pushing Lincoln to the national title. In addition to anchoring the 4x400m relay, Thompson won the 400m dash.

Earlier in the day, the Lady Tiger quartet of Simmy George, Brown, Smith and Thompson captured the 4x100m relay.

St. Augustine's men entered the final event down by five points. The Falcons won the 4x400m relay in 3:05.61. Despite being edged by North Dakota State (.05 seconds), Abilene Christian's third place finish gave them the title by a scant one-point margin.

Ironically, ten years ago in Raleigh, St. Aug beat Abilene Christian by one point (118-117) to pick up its sixth consecutive national championship in 1994.

"I've been planning every day for (winning a third straight title)," Abilene Christian head coach Jon Murray said. "St. Augustine's has a very good program and it looked like we had our work cut out, but our team did a great job and kept improving. We got a very pleasant surprise in the men's 200m (second-place finish from Marvin Bien-Amie). You've got to love it when you have guys like that. You can take it to the bank and build a foundation upon it. We've come to rely on our triple jump crew here for the past several years."

That group wracked up major points Saturday. Yevgen Pashchenko won the event with a mark of 52-7, while Ben Washington was third with a mark of 50-10. Abilene Christian also got a pair of victories from Bernard Manirakiza, who won the 800 meters (1:50.23) and the 1500m (3:44.98).

Bershawn Jackson, the standout freshman 400 meter hurdler from St. Augustine's won his specialty in 49.62, edging teammate and defending champion Adrian Findlay, who was second in 49.82. Jackson set a meet record in Thursday's preliminaries, rounding the oval in 48.50.

St. Aug also got second and third-place finishes from Enrique Llanos and Chris Stephens in the 110m hurdles (Tarmo Jallai of Texas A&M Kingsville won the event in 13.67) and a 3-4-5 finish in the 400m dash from Nathaniel McKinney, Wilan Louis and Jamaal Torrance.

In addition to Lincoln's five national women's titles, Clark Atlanta's Nikki Hill won the high jump and Fort Valley State's Ebony McMath won the 100m hurdles to bring the HBCU women's total titles to seven.

Joining St. Aug's Jackson and the Falcon 4x400m relay team as men's champions from HBCUs, were Lincoln's Lerone Clarke (100m) and Livingstone's Jordan Vaden (200m).

Div. I Qualifiers
Southern University's Michael McKinney and Hampton University's Jerome Mathis were winners in regional meets and automatically qualified for this year's NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships.

McKinney won the high jump at the Mideast Regional meet in Baton Rouge with a best leap of 7' 3". Mathis ran a personal-best 20.32 to break the regional record and successfully defend his East Regional Championship in the 200-meter dash in Gainesville, Fl.

Athletes competed at four regional locations with the top five individual finishers and top three relay teams from each of four regional meets moving on to the National Championships to be held June 9-12 in Austin, Texas.

HBCU performers joining McKinney and Mathis are Emma Wade (SC State-200m), Celine Nyanga (SC State-long jump), Kellie Wells (Hampton-100m hurdles), David Stephens (SC State-pole vault), Kevin Hicks (Florida A&M-800m), Michael Tinsley (Jackson State-400m hurdles), Marcus Harris (Texas Southern-high jump) and Tremedia Brice (Texas Southern-100m).

Div. III Track & Field Results
Lincoln (PA) University finished fifth in the NCAA Division III Men's Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Although no individual champions were crowned, seven HBCU performers earned All-America status.

Black College Division III Track & Field All Americans
Ernest Gibson - Fisk - 400m dash
Pierre Chapman - Lincoln - 110m hurdles
Keko Goldman - Lincoln - 4x400m relay
Alfred Gregory - Lincoln - 4x100m relay
Maurice Hewitt - Lincoln - 4x100m relay, 4x400m relay
Eric Ray - Lincoln - 4x100m relay, Long Jump
Milton Williams - Lincoln - 4x400m relay, 4x100m relay
Bobby Young - Lincoln - 4x400m relay

NAIA Track and Field
Claflin University's Amanda Mack was named NAIA All-American in three events at the NAIA National Track & Field Championships last week in Louisville.

Mack, a freshman sprinter from Hartsville, S.C., finished fourth in the 100 meters (11.8), fifth in the 200 meters (24.166) and fourth in 400 meter relay (47.14) in which she ran the anchor leg for the Pantherettes relay team that featured freshman Falicia Walters and Lavita Lewis and sophomore Harriett Green.

Walters was named a double All-American. She was runner-up in the long jump (19' 2.75). Walters led all jumpers in the preliminary and final rounds until Kelley Park of Windsor edged past her in the final jump.

In addition to Mack and Walters, the Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (EIAC) had three other women who were named all-American. Green and Lewis were on Claflin's 4x100 relay team that finished fourth and Erika Whiteside from Morris College finished fifth in the triple jump.

The EIAC was represented by 33 student-athletes (16 men and 17 women) who qualified for the NAIA National Track & Field Championships. Other outstanding performance were produced by Derrick Harpe, eighth in the men's high jump; Joshua Williams of Voorhees College who finished seventh in the 200 meters; and Ralaska Hoover of Morris who finished seventh in the women's long jump. Hoover missed receiving All-American honors by one-half inch.

Claflin's women finished 13th overall out of the 51 teams that scored at the championships. Morris College finished 36th.

Baseball Pairings
MEAC champion Bethune-Cookman (27-26) will meet ACC champ Florida State (42-20) in Tallahassee June 4 in the first round of the NCAA Div. I Baseball Championship. SWAC champ Texas Southern will travel to Houston to face WAC champ Rice (43-12) in the first game of the double-elimination tournament. Winners in the eight regional tournaments will advance to a super regional with the four regional winners moving on to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

© 2004 Azeez Communications, Inc.

Return to Front Page