Wilkinson's mile record among top GCU performances at Cherry and Silver Invite

Friday, January 22

Albuquerque, N.M.

All Day

Grand Canyon

Cherry and Silver Invitational

Wilkinson's mile record among top GCU performances at Cherry and Silver Invite

1/23/2016 10:58:00 PM | Track and Field

Final Results (PDF)

By: Charles Hampton

The Grand Canyon men's and women's track teams wrapped up the final day of the Cherry and Silver Invitational on Saturday with a number of feature performances.

"I am very pleased with our performances from this weekend," head track and field coach Tom Flood said. "We had at least 11 WAC-leading performances and a lot of other athletes moving up the conference lists."

The women's distance crew had another record-breaking performance as Emily Wilkinson broke her own school record in the mile, running 5:06.72 to place third overall. Wilkinson's mark followed up a school-record performance from Rebekah Young in the 3,000 meters on Friday night.

"I'm particularly pleased with the performances of our distance squad," Flood added. "Coach Slattery has done an outstanding job with them. I know they are still training very hard and haven't done much sped work yet, so the best is yet to come and their performances will only continue to improve."

The men's distance squad also had a standout performance as Brandon Kocmoud ran 4:21.66 in the mile to finish seventh place overall. His mark is currently the fastest mile time in the WAC.

Also on the track, reigning men's WAC Athlete of the Week Aaron Thurber was the fastest collegian in the 60 meters as he place fifth overall with a time of 6.78. Additionally Josh Ralston also raced to a fifth place finish in the 400 meters as he recorded a WAC-leading 48.36 mark, the third-best time among collegiate runners in the meet. Ralston also anchored the 4x400 meter relay where he combined with Isaac Allanarem, Anthony Phelps and Marcus Flannigan to place third, running a conference-best 3:14.77, 1.38 seconds better than their mark at the Lumberjack Team Challenge a week ago.

"I thought Marcus Flannigan, Josh Ralston and Aaron Thurber had outstanding weekends and they know they will be heavily relied upon to help our men win a conference championship."

Jude Olear had a successful meet in the triple jump as well, placing fourth with a jump of 14.48 meters (47-06.25), an improvement of over a foot from a week ago.

The women's middle-distance crew also got a sixth place overall finish from Paeden Jackson as she raced to finish fifth in the first section of the women's 800 meters with a time of 2:20.28.

Both squads will return to action in Flagstaff, Ariz. on Friday and Saturday as part of NAU's Mountain T's Invitational. Lopes fans will be able to follow along at home as live results will be posted at: http://live.wingfootfinish.com/160129MtTsInvite/.