Not this time tough. No, the excitement surrounding this particular trip to frigid Kenosha, Wis., is too strong for the “business-as-usual” to pervade the excursion.
Led by All-Americans Jaime Canterbury and Jackie Kipwambok, the NAIA’s No. 2-ranked Azusa Pacific women’s cross country team heads into Saturday’s NAIA championship meet in Kenosha with an unusual set of expectations. The Cougars plan to win a national championship.
Never before has Azusa Pacific claimed a national title in cross country. The NAIA’s most prolific track & field program, one that has captured 25 men’s and women’s national championships in the past 28 years, has yet finish atop NAIA cross country. In fact, past outings to the NAIA meet have been more about a possible “podium finish” (top 4) than potential banner-claiming efforts.
Yet with Canterbury and Kipwambok, last year’s individual champion and runner-up respectively, back for another year and a strong trio of other Cougars clipping at their heals, Azusa Pacific has visions of a national title looming in their collective mind.
“It’ll probably take 5 All-American performances (top 30 finish) to win the national championship,” said fourth-year Cougar coach Preston Grey. “We have that kind of talent, and we’ve been running very well lately.”
With a school-record 16:57 5K to her credit this year, Kipwambok is the pre-meet favorite to win the NAIA individual crown. She would have won 26 of the previous 28 NAIA championship meets with her sub-17 effort which came at the Aquinas Invitational in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 25. Kipwambok has finished no lower than second in her past 9 races, including the Stanford Invitational (Sept. 27), and has been the victor in 6 of them
Last year’s NAIA champion, Canterbury has been coming on strong in recent weeks after a slow start to the season, clocking a 17:25 to finish second to Kipwambok at the Golden State Athletic Conference meet 2 weeks ago. On the same course in the same meet last year, Canterbury registered a 17:48 before turning in a personal-best 17:10 to win the NAIA title, also on the same course as this year’s title run.
“I feel like this is a culmination of 4 years because we have been slowly building every year for this moment,” said Grey. “Jaime has been the underlining theme the whole time. As she has progressed, the program has progressed with her. She has been the foundational piece upon which everything has been built.”
Senior Renee Graham, who has recorded sub-17:45s in all 4 of her 5K races this year, appears to be at her peak as well after running a 17:31 at GSACs, a time that would have put her among the top 5 at last year’s NAIAs.
Senior Becca Reyes met a lifetime goal at GSACs in Fresno when she recorded her first-ever 18:01, which now has her thinking that perhaps she can register a sub-18 5K.
“Becca is just crazy talented,” said Grey. “She is just starting to scratch the surface of how good she could be. She is pretty close to Jaime and Renee in talent.”
Freshman Lauren Jimison rounds out the Cougars’ scoring 5 and is coming off a lifetime best 18:09 at GSACs.
“Lauren is passionate about running without being obsessed about it,” added Grey. “She works hard but she keeps things in perspective. She has all the pieces to be the next great runner and take on the face of the program.”
The NAIA meet will be the rematch of a rare regular-season clash between Azusa Pacific and top-ranked Cedarville (Ohio) University. At the Aquinas Invitational, then No. 1 Azusa Pacific fell to No. 2 Cedarville, 43-65, but Jimison was sick and finished a distant sixth among the Cougars, and the 40-point gap between the Nos. 4 and 5 runners spelled doom for the Cougars. With everyone at full strength this weekend, the Cougars are expected to press for an elite finish.
“To be honest, anything below second place at nationals would be disappointing,” said Grey. “One of my intentions in setting up our schedule this year was to get a lot of experience so that when we went into nationals there was nothing there that could surprise us. We won Aztec and beat a Northern Arizona team that just qualified for the NCAA Division I meet. At Stanford, we faced a lot of solid division I teams. We go to back to Michigan and see Cedarville there and though we got beat, we’ve seen them and there’s nothing new there. So we’ve seen it all. We know exactly what to expect, it’s just a matter of going out there and racing like we’ve raced.
Azusa Pacific is coming off an impressive showing at GSACs where they posted a school-record team-time of 1:28:06, more than 3 minutes faster than any other previous Cougar team. Kipwambok won the conference title with a 17:00, and Jimison ran an 18:09 at No. 5 as the Cougars took 5 of the top 9 finishes, all of them All-GSAC performances.
On the men’s side, top-ranked Malone College (Ohio) is a heavy favorite to repeat as the team national champion. Like the women, the Cougar men are ranked No. 2 in the final NAIA Coaches Poll, but the Cougars’ real battle will be to finish second for the highest national showing in program history.
“Between second and seventh place any team can go anywhere in there,” assessed Grey as he reviewed the men’s list of teams and rankings. “They’re all the same. It will come down to a matter of who has the better day. There’s not going to be much separating those teams.”
As sure as Malone is to win the team title, so too is Azusa Pacific’s Aron Rono to take the individual title for a second straight year.
Azusa Pacific had never won a men’s or women’s individual title in school history, and then last year it became only the second school ever to sweep both championships when Canterbury edged Kipwambok for the women’s crown, and Rono ran away from the field to take the men’s championship with a 23:52.
“I think he has to go down as one of the finest distance runners in NAIA history,” said Grey about Rono. “He’s untouchable in the NAIA right now.”
The Cougars’ late-season emergence as one of the NAIA’s best squads parallels the running of sophomore All-American Abednego Magut, a transfer from Simpson College (Calif.). Magut has methodically moved from Azusa Pacific’s No. 4 runner in the season-opener at the Aztec Invitational to GSAC runner-up 2 months later, finishing behind fellow Kenyan Rono with a personal 8K best of 24:31. His continued success will be key in Kenosha this weekend.
“We had a lot of inexperienced young guys, guys without great resumes coming into the season,” said Grey. “I thought we might even be a bubble team for nationals. To have the season that we have had certainly exceeds my expectations, and a lot of that has to do with Abednego. We’ve never had a No. 2 as good as him.”
Senior John Pfeil (25:58 8K best), junior Forest Lewton (25:38), sophomore J.J. Timphony (26:17) and freshman Brandon Dugan (26:00) round out a strong set of 6 runners who will play significant roles in the Cougars’ pursuit of at least a podium finish.
“We’ve been consistent all through the season,” added Grey. “We’ve been a solid 6 deep too. Our 5-spot has been a little ways back there nearly every meet so closing the 4-5 gap is going to be key at nationals.”
The race-time forecast for Kenosha, which is on the western shores of Lake Michigan, calls for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 30s, a far cry from the clear skies and mid-70s temps back home in Southern California.
“There’s no snow or rain in the forecast and it’s supposed to be in the 30s, so that’s not too bad,” said Grey. “Obviously we don’t often train or race in that kind of weather. It won’t be that much colder than what we faced in Grand Rapids, which is another reason we went back to the Aquinas Invitational. We can’t physically prepare for this weather so we have to mentally prepare for it. You have to tell yourself to not let it bother you. You have to say, ‘I don’t care what the weather is, I’m going to get my job done.’”
The 29th Annual NAIA Women’s Championship race will open the day’s activities at 10:30 a.m. (CST) followed by the 53rd annual men’s championship run at 11:45 a.m.
