Women win back-to-back titles

Thursday, May 9

Orem, Utah

Grand Canyon

WAC Championships

5/11/2019 7:53:00 PM | Track and Field

Results

GCU wins 3rd title in 4 years at WAC Championships

By: Fletcher Like

OREM, Utah – For the second consecutive year and third time in four years, the Grand Canyon women's outdoor track and field team is the champion of the WAC.

Your back-to-back WAC Women's Track and Field Champions! #LopesUp pic.twitter.com/qTcRKuk354
— GCU Lopes (@GCU_Lopes) May 12, 2019

The women used individual titles from four Lopes over three days, including on Saturday from senior Sarah Root in the 100-meter hurdles and sophomore Dora Filipovic in the 200-meter dash. For Root, it was her second consecutive title. Filipovic claimed her first-ever title as a Lope.

Entering finals with the second-fastest prelim time, @dorafilipovich wins her first WAC title in the 200-meter final. #LopesUp pic.twitter.com/u1k4iytV6I
— GCU Track & XC (@GCU_TrackXC) May 12, 2019

The Lopes women scored points in every race event and every field event on Saturday. On the men's side, the Lopes finished second to host Utah Valley, which won its first title since 2017.

At the beginning of the day, seniors Latoya Gilding and Courtney Logan placed second and fifth in the discus, respectively.

GCU claimed the top two spots in the 100 hurdles with Root taking the crown and senior Shanice Lewis recording a personal record to finish second.

In the 400 meters, sophomores Knowledge Omovoh and Filipovic ran a photo finish for third and fourth place at 54.51 seconds.

Both Filipovic and Omovoh scored in the 200 with fellow sophomore Naudia Dawson finishing seventh for a total of three Lopes in the final.

Junior Elizabeth Balsan scored points in the 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters to start and end the day. Fellow junior Paige Hildebrandt also scored in the 1,500.

The 400-meter relay finished second and the 1,600-meter relay finished third.

The GCU women outscored second-place New Mexico State by 12 points, 203.5 to 191.5.

The Lopes men's team received big personal-best times from freshmen Adam Knuff and Kyle DeMoica, as well as sophomore David Kolar in the 200. Knuff finished third with a time of 21.25. Kolar finished fifth with a 21.44, and DeMoica ran 21.44 to finish sixth.

Knuff and Kolar ran personal records in the 100-meter dash, finishing third and fourth with 10.47 and 10.51 times, respectively. DeMoica placed seventh in the event.

Three Lopes scored in the 1,500 with senior Daniel Flores, who ran three races on the day, leading a GCU trio with freshman Jacob Lewis and Landon Rast to 6-7-8 finishes in the event.

Flores and Lewis scored in the 800 with Flores' final 200-meter kick propelling him from seventh to second.

Freshman Bryson Benjamin ran .02 seconds off his personal record time of 48.05 in the 400, finishing fifth with sophomore Alex Thomas taking eighth.

In total, seven Lopes won individual titles and three school records were broken over three days in Utah.

The Lopes entered the meet with eight marks inside the NCAA West qualifying list. On Thursday, the Lopes will find out who has punched their tickets to the postseason.