WAC 5-peat now within reach

Friday, February 28

Nampa, Idaho

Grand Canyon

WAC Indoor Championships

Photo by: Elizabeth Tinajero

2/27/2020 12:05:00 PM | Track and Field

Lopes to compete in WAC Indoor Championships

By: Sam Kuzminski

NAMPA, Idaho — The Grand Canyon track and field team will attempt to five-peat as men's and women's champions at the WAC Indoor Championships in Nampa, Idaho, this Friday through Saturday.

"I am very excited and confident in our teams' ability to have a very successful WAC Indoor Championships meet again this year," GCU head coach Tom Flood said.

Last year, the Lopes men's team won the meet by 48 points and the women's team won by 34.5 points. GCU was able to score points in all but two events.

Expectations are high as GCU sophomore Jorden Okyere comes off a successful stretch of three meets, when he broke the school record in shot put each time. In addition, Lopes sophomore Trey Johnson looks to repeat last year's WAC Championships strong performance in the long jump. Senior Grant Carpenter also remains a force to be reckoned with in the heptathlon to help the team chase another title.

"Our men's team is well balanced with a good mixture of senior leadership and some very talented newcomers," Flood said.

On the women's side, GCU junior Alexa Hokanson is coming off a strong indoor season, as she broke the school record in the 600-meter run twice. Lopes pole vaulters Alyson Schwartz and Madelyn Lundberg are first and second, respectively, in the WAC. Senior distance runner Paige Hildebrandt is also predicted to have success as she shattered the GCU record in the mile last year at the WAC Indoor Championships, giving the team six points toward its title.

"Our women's team is very young this year and we will be missing some very talented athletes due to injuries but everyone here is ready to leave it all out on the track and fight until the last event," Flood said.

The schedule will be the same for both days of competition. The combined events start at 9 a.m. with field events at 2:30 p.m. and running events at 3 p.m.

"Both teams know that no one is going to just hand them anything and that they are going to have to fight for every point they get," Flood said. "We will have to battle in every single event to the best of our abilities and let the games committee keep track of the team scores."