2018 Pacific West Conference Championships Results (Final)
2018 Brutus Hamilton Challenge Results
FRESNO, Calif. – Academy of Art University Track & Field put forth a strong final effort on Saturday as the ART U men's team finished third and the women took fifth at the 2018 Pacific West Conference Championships at host Fresno Pacific. For the second consecutive season,
Hannah Hensley was named the PacWest Most Outstanding Women's Field Athlete and
Mobolade Ajomale was selected as the PacWest Most Outstanding Men's Track Athlete.
"The championship segment of the season is always fun," said head coach
Kevin LaSure. "It's great to get to see our student-athletes competing for something and seeing the results of all the hard work they have put in throughout the season. We went into the championship meet thin due to the amount of people we have out right now due to various different reasons, but I watched those who did compete fight through pain and several different adverse situations, attempting to give their best effort no matter the circumstances."
In a repeat of the success he had at both the 2016 and 2017 PacWest Championships, Ajomale was dominant in all four events he contested on Saturday. Starting in the 4x100m relay, Ajomale joined
Marlon Britton,
Nicolas Morales Williams, and
Arrun Palacio to take the title with a collective time of 41.07. Soon after, Ajomale delivered the best mark of his career (47.19) en route to the 400m championship, a race that also saw a season-best from Morales Williams (49.60).
For the third straight year, Ajomale took home the 100m title, flying across the finish line at 10.67 while Britton was not far behind in third. Finally, Ajomale showed he still had plenty left in the tank as he dropped a season-best 20.75 for the title in the 200m. The time is the fourth-fastest in NCAA Division II thus far and right on the edge of a Nationals automatic qualification. Palacio took fourth with his own season-best 21.78 in the same event.
"Bolade had a phenomenal weekend," said LaSure. "We knew all season that we wanted to use this week to see where we were in training so, if we had missed anything, we would have time to work on things going into NCAA's. What we found out this weekend is that he's a special athlete and what he accomplished this weekend is a result of all of the hard work he has put in throughout the season."
Leading the Heptathlon through four events on day one, Hensley added one more first-place result in the 800m to come away with the conference championship and a season-best 4,982 points. The total was a Nationals provisional qualifier and put her fifth in the country.
Folke Woch took third and
Briaunna Caver finished fourth after the seven events were complete.
Also contributing to Hensley's Most Outstanding Field Athlete honor was an individual victory in the high jump. It took a 5-6 (1.68m) clearance to place first and, after Hensley met the challenge, she attempted to break the meet record, but could not surpass the 5-9.25 height. It was the second straight season she earned the high jump title.
In addition to wearing gold in the 4x100m and bronze in the 100m, Britton added another top finish in the 100m hurdles. Winding up just 0.02 shy of his lifetime-best set in 2015, he posted a season-best 14.48 good for a Nationals provisional qualification.
"Marlon really impressed me this weekend," said LaSure. "In the last PacWest Championship meet of his collegiate career, he was able to run season-bests in both the 110mH and 100m, winning the conference title in in the hurdles and finishing third in the 100m."
Less than 24 hours after his 3000m Steeplechase title,
Gatien Airiau finished the meet atop the podium in the 5000m with a new PacWest Championship record 14:39.78. The time bettered fellow Frenchman and ART U alum Valentin Pepiot's 14:52.08 and was supported by a fourth-place finish for
Joshua Thorson and
Freddie Hessian crossing the line in sixth.
"Gatien went out with two deserved wins in his final PacWest Championship and Josh Thorson continued a strong comeback with a good 5000, following up on his 10,000m win Friday," said director of track & field/cross country Torrey Olson. "For many of our student-athletes, it was their first PacWest Championship and it was great to see them introduced to such a higher level of competition than when the meet was hosted here four years ago. There was a lot of great competition and a lot of learning experiences that grew from that."
Marion Presigny scored points for Academy of Art in both hurdle events, claiming second in the 100mH and sixth in the 400mH. Her 13.94 time was just one-tenth of a second off her season-high from the day prior. Also in the 100mH, Hensley took fifth overall.
Scoring positions were dominated by the Urban Knights in the men's 1500m with
Victor Moreau coming in third,
Rabah Houali fourth,
Marvin Thomas sixth, and Hessian seventh. On the women's side of the 1500m,
Beatriz Martinez Mercado offered a third-place finish with a final time of 4:33.89.
Following up his third-place result in the long jump on Friday, Palacio took fourth in the triple jump.
The women's 400m saw
Latavia Hawkins score in fifth overall.
In the men's 800m, Houali and Thomas both brought in points, finishing sixth and seventh respectively while the women's 800m had
Ashley Brown claiming sixth.
Beyond the men's 4x100m, ART U scored points in all relays with the men's 4x400m taking third, the women's 4x100m coming in fourth, and the women's 4x400m seventh in their respective finals.
"For the women, Hannah, Rian and Marion gave their best effort to try to carry the sprints, hurdles and jumps group," said LaSure. "We were missing quite a few women from those event groups and they did a great job battling in each event making it feel like we had a lot more than just three women in some of those events. Hannah really showed great mental toughness this weekend and seemed to improve with each event. With a few solid weeks of training, hopefully she can do some really amazing things at NCAA's across several events."
In the team scoring, the ART U men finished third while the women took fifth behind repeat champion Azusa Pacific. With the
two titles from Airiau and Thorson the day prior, Academy of Art finished with a total of 10 gold medals.
BERKELEY, Calif. – A collection of three Urban Knights were also in action in UC Berkeley's Brutus Hamilton Challenge out at Edwards Stadium.
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Academy of Art opens the month of May with two meets: Stanford's Payton Jordan Invitational on May 3 and the Sacramento State Open on May 5.
