FOREST GROVE, Ore. – The Northern Arizona men’s track and field team locked up the Big Sky Conference outdoor championship Saturday for the second straight year. The Lumberjack men won the 18th outdoor conference title in school history by scoring 143 points, seven better than runner-up Sacramento State.
The 2013 squad is just the fifth in NAU and Big Sky history to win conference cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field championships in the same season, a feat the Lumberjacks also accomplished last year.
The NAU women finished third with 93 points, matching their finish from last year’s outdoor championship and falling 17 points short of Portland State for second place.
“It’s really neat to have a combined program so you can have the men cheering on the women and vice versa,” coach Eric Heins said. “Our women finishing higher than expected early on in the meet seemed to inspire the men, so it was kind of a snowball effect from there as the guys closed out the last few events the way they did, and the women finished higher than they did indoors as well.”
Senior Diego Estrada earned a pair of victories in the 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters and shared the meet’s Most Valuable Athlete award for most points scored, while fellow senior Miles Di Sabella stole 200-meter gold in a career-best time to lead the men on a monumental final day.
“We knew it would come down to the 5,000 meters and the 4x400-meter relay in terms of who would win the meet,” Heins added. “Miles’ victory in the 200 kept us even closer to Sacramento State, who we knew we would have to outscore in the 5,000 meters, then our men stepped up and did just that to help us clinch it.”
Di Sabella, running in the final conference championship event of his storied NAU career, also snagged a bronze medal and a personal record in the 100 meters (10.55), not to mention being a big contributor in a sixth place 4x100-meter relay effort (41.70) and a seventh-place 4x400-meter relay performance (3:17.27).
“Today was one of those days I woke up and just felt it, for lack of a better word,” Di Sabella said. “A lot of people come into these meets with nagging injuries, but I think our coaches definitely prepared us as best as they possibly could. Having faith in what they tell you and not doubting your training will definitely get you far in this program.”
Also capturing a Big Sky title to help the Lumberjack men was true freshman Micael Ljungberg. A native of Sweden, Ljungberg won the discus in his first-career conference championship meet with a toss of 175 feet, 10 inches (53.60m).
The NAU women, not to be outdone, had arguably their best collective outing of the season right when it was needed. High jumper Lauren Lazczak and discus thrower Julia Viberg led a strong final day for the team, as Laszczak won her second-career conference title with a jump of 5-8 (1.73m) and Viberg, a true freshman, won her event by nearly 30 feet with a personal-best throw of 177-5 (54.07m).
The women’s 4x100-meter relay team of Darriel Banks, Shamelle Pless, Jade Childs, and Brianna Wilson, in their first and only race of the season, ran the third-fastest time in school history (46.08) and placed third overall.
A flurry of other Lumberjacks also put up All-Big Sky performances on Saturday by placing among the top three in their respective events. Vernon Jamison, the indoor 60-meter hurdle champ, placed second in the 110-meter hurdles with a career-best time of 14.25. Banks did the same in the 100 meters, taking home silver in a time of 11.80.
True freshman Futsum Zienasellassie, the nation’s top freshman in November’s NCAA Cross Country Championships, earned a pair of silver medals in the first Big Sky track and field event of his career. Zienasellassie took second in the 1,500 meters in a time of 3:48.50, then returned later in the day to virtually tie for the win with Estrada in the 5,000 meters (14:26.37), beating the stadium record to boot.
Sophomore Caleb Hoover, who took third in the steeplechase Friday, earned another bronze medal Saturday with a third-place finish in the 5,000 meters. Hoover, the event’s defending champion, crossed the line in a time of 14:30.15.
Brian Shrader also captured a bronze medal with a time of 1:51.63 in the 800 meters. Shrader matched that performance with a fourth-place finish in the 1,500-meter run (3:49.14), giving him a total of 11 points scored for the weekend.
Dai McFadden, who qualified for the 400-meter hurdle final Friday with a lifetime-best, did the same thing Saturday, finishing third overall in a time of 52.04 to clinch the first all-conference award of his career.
Also scoring for both Lumberjack squads Saturday were Banks (fourth) and Pless (seventh) in the 200 meters, Caleb Potts in the 800 meters (sixth), Nathan Weitz in the 1,500 meters (fifth) and the 5,000 meters (sixth), Rochelle Kanuho (fifth) and Rolonda Jumbo (sixth) in the 5,000 meters, and Emily Bartz in the 800-meter run (fifth).
Bartz, a sophomore who ran a personal-best in Friday’s prelims, ran three-tenths of a second better in the event final (2:11.31) to earn the first Big Sky points of her career.
Although the Big Sky dust is beginning to settle, the season is far from over for many NAU tracksters. Lumberjacks carrying marks ranking among the top 48 in the NCAA West Region will move on to NCAA West Preliminary Round in Austin, Texas May 23-25.
