Azusa Pacific Men’s Track Team Going After Its First Indoor Title

When it comes to outdoor track and field championships, the Azusa Pacific University men’s team stands above the crowd in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The Cougars have won the NAIA outdoor title an unprecedented seven years in a row.

But, for all of its success outdoors, Azusa Pacific has never won an NAIA indoor championship.

The closest the Cougars have come to winning an indoor championship has been second-place finishes the last two seasons.

On March 2 and 3, Azusa Pacific will make another run at an indoor championship at the NAIA nationals at Municipal Arena in Kansas City, Mo.

“We’ve been runner-up the past two years and I would say that right now we’re probably underdogs to Adams State (of Colorado),” Azusa Pacific assistant coach Kevin Reid said. “But we’re pretty confident. We qualified everyone we wanted to and we feel like we’re going to take our best team back there.”

That’s what the Cougars were saying last year, when they finished a distant second to Wayland Baptist of Texas, a perennial indoor power.

“We thought we were really close on paper last year,” Reid said. “Then, once we got there, we really had a lot of bad things happen to us. Some (of our top) guys didn’t qualify and some guys were forced to pull out.”

This year, Azusa is led by senior Ade Olukoju, a native of Nigeria who is regarded as one of the premier throwers in the nation in any division. At the British Commonwealth Games three weeks ago, Olukoju won the discus with a throw of 205 feet 5 inches and placed second in the shotput at 60-7 3/4.

Olukoju won the shotput and the 35-pound weight throw at last year’s NAIA indoor meet.

The Cougars will also count on Ryan McCann in the 35-pound weight throw, Eddie Carbin in the 55-meter hurdles, Felix Sandy in the 400-meter run, Paul Dennis in the 600-meter run and Chris Hunter in the 55-meter dash.

Even with peak performances from its top athletes, Reid said Azusa Pacific will be hard-pressed to take the title.

“We’ve always been a sprint and weight dominated program and we’re also strong in the decathlon,” Reid said. “Indoors, middle distances tend to dominate. They don’t have the decathlon and they don’t have many sprints.”

There do not figure to be many surprises when the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. postseason basketball tournaments are held Thursday through Saturday.

Cal State Bakersfield is the clear choice to win the men’s tournament, which will be played at Bakersfield. Cal Poly Pomona is an overwhelming favorite in women’s play.

The Bakersfield men have a 23-4 record and are ranked No. 11 in NCAA Division II. In the first round Friday, second-seeded UC Riverside (20-7) plays third-seeded Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (19-8) at 6 p.m. and Bakersfield faces Cal State Los Angeles (14-13) at 8. The winners play for the title Saturday at 8 p.m.

Pomona (23-3) will take a 16-game winning streak into the first round of the women’s division Thursday at Pomona.

In first-round games, second-seeded Cal State Northridge (10-17) faces third-seeded Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (13-13) at 6 and Pomona plays host to fourth-seeded Chapman (18-9) at 8. The final is at 6 p.m. Saturday in Bakersfield.

History is not on the side of Cal State San Bernardino entering the NCAA Division III West Regional women’s basketball tournament at Concordia College in Moorehead, Minn.

The last time San Bernardino reached the regional, two years ago, the tournament was also held at Concordia and the Coyotes lost back-to-back games by wide margins. But this time San Bernardino enters the tournament with a 22-game winning streak and 23-3 record.

The Coyotes, seeded third in the four-team regional, meet second-seeded St. Thomas (22-3) of Minnesota in their tournament opener Friday.

Concordia, seeded first, with a 22-3 record, plays fourth-seeded Colorado College (18-5) in the other first-round game. The winners meet for the title Saturday.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, which tied with La Verne and Redlands for the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men’s title but received an automatic Division III berth through a tiebreaker system, will take a 19-7 record into its regional opener against Dubuque (18-8) on Thursday in Iowa. The winner faces top-seeded St. Thomas of Minnesota in the regional semifinals Saturday in St. Paul and the final is Sunday.

College Division Notes

Ryan Teeples of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pam Stalter of Redlands have been named men’s and women’s swimmers of the year in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Teeples won three events in leading Claremont to its ninth straight men’s title.