UAA track and field
UAA sweeps awards
UAA's outdoor track and field team is off to a good start this season, having swept this week's Great Northwest Athletic Conference's Red Lion Athlete of the Week awards.
UAA sophomore Dylan Anthony was named men's track athlete of the week, with freshman Franz Burghagen taking the men's field award. Junior Ivy O'Guinn was the women's track athlete of the week, and there was no field award for the women this week.
Anthony posted a national qualifying time in the 5,000-meter race, the Kodiak distance specialist finishing in 14 minutes, 27.79 seconds at the Ben Brown Invitational in Fullerton, Calif. His time is the fastest in the GNAC this season and ninth fastest in league history.
Burghagen, of Berlin, Germany, threw the javelin 230 feet, 7 inches, good enough for an NCAA Division II automatic national qualifying mark and the second best mark in GNAC history.
O'Guinn, of Soldotna, was one of three Seawolves to establish a provisional national qualifying mark in the 800 meters at the Southern Invitational in Birmingham, Ala. She clocked a provisional national qualifying time of 2:12.72 to take the early season conference lead in the event.
The Seawolves return to action Friday at the Occidental Distance Carnival and Saturday at the Northridge Invitational in Southern California.
swimming
Costello and Billings make Hall
Anchorage's Mia Costello and Andrew Billings will make up the inaugural class for the Alaska Swimming Hall of Fame and will be inducted during a ceremony April 27 at the Alaska Junior Olympics Championships meet at Bartlett High.
Costello was the first Alaskan swimmer to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials and Billings was the second. Costello and Billings, who are now married and living in Anchorage, each qualified in 1988.
Costello, a 1986 West High graduate, is the only Alaska high school swimmer to win eight state titles and break the state record with each of her four victories in the 100 breaststroke and 400 individual medley.
While swimming for West Valley High in Fairbanks, Billings set state records in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle before graduating in 1986. His record in the 200 stood for 22 years.
Both Costello and Billings went on to swim in college, Costello for Harvard and Billings for UAF.
Anchorage Daily News