For the third time in three seasons, a UAA indoor track and field team has won a Great Northwest Athletic Conference team championship -- but this time it was the men's turn to grab the glory.
Led by a record-breaking performance by freshman Henry Cheseto, the men's team earned its first conference championship Saturday at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho, racking up 142 points to beat two-time defending champion Western Washington by six points.
Cheseto, who won the 5,000 meter race Friday, broke the conference record in the 3,000 meters Saturday. His winning time of 8 minutes, 27.83 seconds was a half-second faster than the record time laid down last season by former UAA runner and fellow Kenyan Micah Chelimo. As in the 5,000, UAA sophomore Dominik Notz finished second.
Chesteo was joined atop the podium Saturday by Cody Thomas, a junior who won his third consecutive GNAC heptathlon title Saturday.
Thomas, a junior, was a scoring machine for the Seawolves, scoring points in four different individual events. He was fifth in the long jump Friday, then won the heptathlon Saturday, finished third in the high jump and placed fifth in the 200 meters. Following the meet, the New Zealander was named the men's Most Outstanding Performer.
Other top performances turned in by the men's team second-place finishes by Adam Commandeur in the 400 meters and Nathan Kipchumba in the 800, as well as a second-place team finish in the 1,600 meter relay.
The two-time defending champion UAA women came up short in their bid for a third straight crown, finishing 12 points behind Seattle Pacific in second place.
Since adding indoor track and field in 2013, UAA has won a men's or women's title each season. The women were first in 2013 and 2014, while the men finished second both seasons.
Despite missing out on a third title, the women still had a slew of standout performances.
Jamie Ashcroft was the Seawolves' biggest star Saturday, breaking a pair of GNAC records en route to victories in the 60- and 200-meter sprints. Ashcroft, a sophomore from British Columbia, ran a 7.65 in the 60 meters to beat Seattle Pacific's Becca Houk by one-hundredth of a second. Both women broke the previous record of 7.67 set in 2010 by SPU's Latasha Essien.
In the 200 meters, Ashcroft broke her own GNAC mark with a winning time of 24.25 seconds -- lowering her record by a whopping 0.44 seconds in the process.
Also on Saturday, junior Karolin Anders -- who won a pair of events on Friday and finished third in another -- placed second in the triple jump, one spot ahead of teammate Alexia Blalock, a sophomore from Hawaii.
For her two-day performance, Anders was named co-female Most Outstanding Performer, sharing the honor with Central Washington's Becki Duhamel and Simon Fraser's Lindsey Butterworth. Anders also won the award in 2014.
Other top performances Saturday were turned in by Bartlett High product Rosie Smith, a junior who finished second in the 60 meter hurdles and seventh in the 60 meters, and German Beatrice Decker, who was runner-up in the mile and eighth in the 3,000 meters.