Turtle Bay, Hawai'i -- The Academy of Art University women's cross country season culminated with the 2008 Hawaiian Airlines Pacific West Conference Cross Country Championships this past Saturday. The Urban Knights took fourth overall and managed to place one runner, sophomore Irinel Zamfir, in fifth place (19:36).
"Irinel completed a really good season by finishing fifth,” said Head Coach Mike Spino. “I think the main thing to think about is how the girls improved. Up until three weeks ago, the girls had never beaten a team. Three weeks ago, we decided to separate the women's team from the men's team. They needed to have their own identity. Assistant Coach Anne Ricketts organized the girls into a unit that had a separate identity from the men.”
As a team, AAU finished with 109 points to defeat fifth-place finisher Dixie State by 36 points. BYU-Hawai'i was the meet's victor followed by Hawai'i Pacific and University of Hawai'i-Hilo. Behind AAU and Dixie State, three other teams, Notre Dame de Namur, Grand Canyon and Chaminade, rounded out the results.
BYU-Hawai'i's Amanda Whitford, the Pacific West Conference champion last season, completed the 5K course in 18:22 and successfully defended her title. Whitford was a full 43 seconds in front of Johanna Berggren of Hawaii Pacific, who took second place.
For Academy of Art University, juniors Joyce Chepkirui (20:43) and Martha Cherop Bore (21:27) finished 18th and 22nd respectively while senior Aubrey Hadley (22:27) and junior Kari Devereaux (24:05) crossed the line as the final two scorers.
“Before the scholar athletes came, we held a training session to see who had potential from the school itself,” Spino said. “Probably four athletes came from that group and two, Kari and Aubrey, survived everything. All the time they were training, we were trying to accommodate them and the first time we could have them all together in one meet was the SFSU meet. Our goal was just to beat at least two or three teams and the reason we were able to [finish fourth overall] was because of our fourth and fifth-place finishers, Aubrey Hadley & Kari Devereaux, who were both 'walk-ons' (AAU students who heard about the sport programs and joined the team).”
By decision of the Athletic Directors of the Pacific West Conference last Spring, Academy of Art University cross country teams were invited to compete in this year's 2008 Conference Championship with the following provisos:
(1) There would be two scores to the meet- one in which the Academy runners were not scored, and a second in which they were given an official score by the League Commissioner. (2) The person who won the overall meet would be declared the Conference champion. (3) AAU could not qualify for All-Conference honors (given to the first 14 finishers) or the trophy for the team championship.
Results
