Sipes Wins National Championship, Six 'Lopes Earn All-America Honors

Friday, March 11

Albuquerque, NM

Grand Canyon

NCAA DII Indoor National Championship

Shavine Hodges

Sipes Wins National Championship, Six 'Lopes Earn All-America Honors

3/12/2011 5:29:12 PM | Track and Field, Women's Track and Field

By: Joel Horn

Grand Canyon University junior Tyler Sipes (Bloomington, IL/Bloomington, Mesa Community College) won the men's 60-meter hurdles with a personal best 7.75 seconds to become GCU's first-ever track & field national champion, and all six Antelopes earned All-America honors at the 2011 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championship today at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, N.M.

"All the hard work at the track and in the weight room is paying off, and I'm glad I could bring a national title back to Grand Canyon," Sipes said.

Sipes; freshman AAron Hill (Gilbert, AZ/Williams Field), who yesterday placed second in the men's long jump with a personal best 7.43 meters (24 feet, 4 1/2 inches); redshirt freshman Shavine Hodges (Montego Bay, Jamaica/Mount Alvernia, Colbourne College), who placed third in the women's 60-meter dash with a time of 7.37 seconds and fourth in the women's 200-meter dash with a personal best 24.04 seconds; and junior Mikio Bain (Glendale, AZ/Raymond S. Kellis, Glendale Community College), who finished sixth in the men's 60-meter dash with a personal best 6.76 seconds and eighth in the men's 200 meters, are the first GCU track & field student-athletes to be named All-America.

One national champion, one national runner-up, six All-Americans -- not bad for a first-year program.

Add to that the 'Lopes' national rankings -- the men's team is ranked No. 16 and the women's team No. 17 in the Week 7 U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, released on March 7 -- and you have the makings of a program on a very rapid rise under its head Coach, Tom Flood.

"What a remarkable performance for a first-year program!" Flood said. "The future looks very bright for GCU track & field. We're very blessed."

GCU qualified for the Indoor Track & Field Championship in 10 events -- women's long jump (freshman Brianne Kee; Peoria, AZ/Sunrise Mountain), men's 200 meters (Bain), women's 200 meters (Hodges), women's 60-meter dash (Hodges), men's 60-meter dash (Bain), men's 60-meter hurdles (Sipes), men's long jump (Hill), women's 400-meter dash (junior Precious Amukamara; Glendale, AZ/Apollo, Glendale Community College), women's pole vault (junior Brittany Warren; Laramie, WY/Laramie Senior, Paradise Valley Community College) and women's triple jump (sophomore Amber Yingling; Peoria, AZ/Raymond S. Kellis, Northern Arizona University).

The 'Lopes qualified for the finals in six of the events.

The GCU men's team finished in eighth place and the women's team in 17th.

March 11 results
March 12 results