The victories validate Azusa Pacific’s placing as the top NAIA programs on the west coast and solidify the Cougars’ chances to pursue national honors at next month’s NAIA championship meet
Led by All-Americans Jacky Kipwambok and Jaime Canterbury, the NAIA’s No. 2-ranked Cougar women scored a meet-low 32 points to run away from a very strong field and post a rather impressive victory that also included the NAIA’s No. 3-ranked Cal State San Marcos, which was a distant second with 50 points, No. 5 Concordia University, No. 7 Biola University and No. 25 Point Loma Nazarene University.
“That’s a pretty good margin of victory for a small meet like this and with so many nationally-ranked teams competing,” said a very pleased Cougar head coach Preston Grey.
The Cougars captured their first-ever Vanguard Invitational victory by placing 3 runners in the top 4 and having 5 in the top 13 of the 97 competitors who finished the race.
Kipwambok led the way by shattering her own 5K course record by more than 40 seconds with a blazing 17:04 to also break Canterbury’s school 5K record of 17:10 that she set in winning last year’s NAIA title. Kipwambok, a sophomore out of Kenya and the reigning Golden State Athletic Conference champ, averaged a 5:30 mile and wasted little time pulling away from the field. She beat Cal State San Marcos’ Dallon Williams by 21 seconds.
“I’m going too fast, faster than I expected,” said a deadpanned Kipwambok. “Coming into to this meet today, I didn’t know I could run a sub-17:10. My plan was to run at least a 17:35, and I ended up running 17:04, which is too fast. I was planning to run fast like that at Fresno (GSAC championships) because that’s a fast course there.”
Canterbury, who is reaching mid-season form after a shortened training session this summer, clocked her best performance of 2008 with a 17:38 to finish third.
“This is faster than any time I ran before nationals last year, so I’m back to where I want to be,” said Canterbury, who last year became the first Cougar ever to win the NAIA individual title. “It felt good to get out there and be among the leaders today. I felt like I was competing. Our goal was to go 1-2-3 but it didn’t quite go that way. Williams ran a good race for San Marcos.”
Senior Renee Graham emerged from the pack over the second half of the race and stayed with Canterbury the rest of the way, closely following with a season-best 17:41, the fifth-best 5K run in Cougar program history.
Freshmen Lauren Jimison was 11th with an 18:26, while senior Becca Reyes rounded out the Cougars’ scoring 5 with an 18:37.
“Jimison and Reyes really did a good job of stepping up and closing that gap split to keep it a little tighter,” said Grey. “That was huge. That will be a key for us at nationals, keeping our 4-5 closer to Jacky.”
As a collective unit, the Kipwambok-Canterbury-Graham-Jimison-Reyes quintet clocked a combined 1:29:26 to easily break the school record for team performance by more than 2 minutes. The former standard, which was set at last year’s NAIA regional championship meet and included Kipwambok, Canterbury and Reyes, was 1:31.32.
The Cougar men, who came in ranked No. 3 in the NAIA, posted an equally dominating performance, tallying 35 points to win team title. Cal State San Marcos, ranked No. 5 in the NAIA, was second with 59 points, while No. 13 Vanguard University was fourth with 117. Unranked Concordia slipped in at third with 113.
For the sixth time in the past 8 meets, reigning NAIA champ Aron Rono won the individual 8K race with a modest 24:38, far of his course record 24:11 that he set last year. He had been slowed the past 2 weeks by a hip injury that left some question about his strength for the Vanguard Invitational. He opted to run a conservative race while at the same time pacing All-American teammate Abednego Magut, who is emerging as a great force to give the Cougars’ one of the best 1-2 punches in the nation.
“I did what I was expecting for today,” said Rono. “I thought I would take it easy and run back for 1 or 2 miles and then go from there. It was very relaxing.”
With the aid of his fellow Kenyan Rono, Magut ran a season-best 25:01, the 15th best 8K time in Azusa Pacific history, to finish second overall and offer Azusa Pacific’s first 1-2 finish in any meet in at least a decade.
“I talked to Abenego a lot during the race,” said Rono. “I helped him a lot and pushed him brcause he was falling back. So I slowed down and tried to pull him up. I was telling him to ‘stick with me and try to match my strides and you won’t get that tired.’ He told me that when he is running alone he gets tired very quick. So I tried to have my encouragement pull him along.”
Despite a heavy week of training that he thought might affect his performance today, junior Forrest Lewton nonetheless aided the Cougar cause with a season-best 25:59 to finish eighth overall.
“Coming in I didn’t feel it in my legs, so I was a little hesitant,” said Lewton. “Once I got out there though, I took it out easy and I felt fresh. Sometimes you just have to wait until you get on the course to see how you feel. I was about 2 miles in and thinking ‘this is going to be good. Keep going.’”
“He put in the work this summer so Forrest is really strong,” said Grey. “He just may be a little over-trained right now, so a little bit of recovery, a little bit of rest will be good for everybody. But we’re definitely where we need to be at this point in the season.”
Senior John Pfeil was 12th with a 26:09, and sophomore J.J. Timphony used a strong kick over the final 50 meters to overcome teammate Brandon Dugan and round out the Cougars’ scoring 5 with a 26:34, good enough for 19th out of 83 runners. The freshman Dugan recorded a 26:35.
The Cougars take next week off and return to the dirt courses in 2 weeks, Oct. 25, in their most important regular season meet – the Aquinas Invitational in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the Cougar women will go head to head with the NAIA’s top-ranked Cedarville (Ohio) University, while the men dual it out with several nationally-ranked NAIA teams from the Midwest.
“We’re going back there with the goal of winning both team races,” added Grey. “We’re going to see where we stack up for both our men and women. And No. 1 vs. No. 2 -- how often do you get that in cross country regular season?
