ORANGE, Calif. – If there was any doubt about Azusa Pacific’s claim on the NAIA’s top spot in the coaches poll, the Cougars soundly answered all questions and secured a lock on the billing as the nation’s premier women’s cross country team.
The Cougars ran away from an elite field to win the Biola Invitational held at the Irvine Regional Park Saturday morning. In the process, the top-ranked Cougars beat No. 2 Cal State San Marcos, No. 3 Biola University and No. 4 Simon Fraser University (B.C.).
For a season that was deemed to be a rebuilding campaign, the Cougars have defied expectation and clearly become the favorite to repeat as the national champion.
All-American junior Jacky Kipwambok led a closely-knitted set of Cougar finishers by winning her fourth straight meet and her eighth in the past 10 events. Kipwambok was never pressed throughout the 5K course and cruised to a 17:14 to beat the 117-athlete field.
As significant as the team victory was, so too was the performance of sophomore Lauren Jimison, who posted the biggest surprise performance among all Cougars. As predicted in a pre-meet comment from Azusa Pacific head coach Preston Grey, Jimison was the No. 2 Cougar after firmly establishing herself as the team’s third runner through the first 3 meets. However, her workouts during the team’s recent 3-week layoff led Grey to believe that she was on the verge of something big, and Jimison proved her coach right by clocking a personal-record 17:23 to finish second behind Kipwambok and in the process move into third place on the program’s all-time best-times list. It was 14-second PR for Jimison on a course generally regarded to be one of the more difficult routes the Cougars have run in recent years.
Jimison’s effort is even more notable in light of the fact that while Azusa Pacific soundly beat all competitors, she was the only Cougar to register a PR on this course.
Junior Victoria Martinez finished ninth overall with an 18:13 while freshman Poppy Lawman and junior Kayla Carstensen followed closely behind with an 18:20 and 18:22 to finish 15th and 16th overall.
Azusa Pacific tallied 43 points. Cal State San Marcos was second with 55 while Simon Fraser upset host Biola, registering 60 points to the Eagles’ 72.
The Cougars led throughout the entire race, holding a 1-point lead after 3 runners and a 6-point cushion after 4 finishers.
In her first appearance as a Cougar, junior Stephanie Loudien was the squad’s No. 6 runner, finishing 35th overall with a fine time of 19:08. It was her first cross country competition since her senior season in high school 3 years ago. Louden, who has been a student at Azusa Pacific since the fall of 2007, just joined the Cougar program 3 weeks ago and has had little time to establish any conditioning and build a distance-running base.
The Cougar men, who were hoping to put together a performance at Biola that potentially would jettison into the Top 25, fell short of their goal, finishing sixth in an 11-team field.
For the third time in 4 races this season, junior Abednego Magut won the individual title, registering a 24:43 to beat his nearest competitor by 21 seconds.
Senior Forrest Lewton, who is battling a season-long hip injury, finished 20th overall, well over a minute off Magut’s winning pace with a 26:02. Sophomore J.J. Timphony followed with a 26:22 to finish 24th.
Sophomore Spencer Winston (26:38) and freshman Anthony Lacambra (27:31) closed out the Cougars’ scoring 5 by finishing 34th and 51st overall.
Azusa Pacific finished with 126 points. Cal State San Marcos won with 72 points, followed by Simon Fraser at 77. Golden State Athletic Conference rivals California Baptist University, Westmont College and Vanguard University all finished ahead of the Cougars.
Azusa Pacific will rest a week before returning to the course at the GSAC Championship Meet Nov. 7 in Fresno, Calif., at Woodward Park.
