UAA's indoor track and field team is only two years old, but it's hardly a fledgling.
The UAA women are 2 for 2 at the Great Northwest Conference Athletic Conference, claiming their second straight conference title Saturday in Nampa, Idaho.
The men placed second to Western Washington, and together the UAA men and women scored the highest combined score at the meet, though there's no award for that.
"Winning the conference championship is tough for us because we don't tend to have big teams," UAA coach Michael Friess said, "so for us to win is pretty special."
Karolin Anders, a sophomore from Germany, turned in a staggering two-day performance for the Seawolves to earn the meet's Outstanding Performer award.
She racked up 34 of UAA's 154 points by winning the pentathlon with a meet-record 3,640 points Friday and scoring big points in four open events Saturday. Anders won the triple jump, placed second in the high jump, third in the long jump and eighth in the shot put.
UAA produced 12 conference championship and 23 all-conference honorees during the two-day meet.
Besides Anders, Saturday's champions included:
• Freshman Jamie Ashcroft, who won the 200 in a GNAC-record 24.69 seconds and the 60 meters in 7.69 second. "She had a spectacular day," Friess said.
• Junior Joyce Kipchumba, who won the 3,000 in 10:01.01 to go with her Friday title in the 5,000 (she also added a second-place finish in Saturday's mile, clocking 5:04.36).
• Senior Micah Chelimo, who added the 3,000 title (meet-record 8:28.35) to his Friday win in the 5,000 (he was third in the mile in 4:13.9).
• Senior Ethan Hewitt, who took the men's 400 in a GNAC-record of 48.31 to take The women finished 29 points ahead of second-place Seattle Pacific. The men totaled 134 points, 23 fewer than Western Washington.
• Sophomore Cody Thomas defended his hepthathlon title with 4,904 points.
• The men's 4x400 relay team, which posted a time of 3:16.09 to win by more than three seconds.
The women's 154 points put them 29 points ahead of runner-up Seattle Pacific. Western Washington topped the men's field with 157, followed by UAA with 134.
UAA's next meet is the NCAA Division II indoor championships, March 14-15 in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Anchorage Daily News