4 records fall at Azusa Pacific

Wednesday, April 13

Azusa, Calif.

Grand Canyon

Bryan Clay Invitational

4/16/2022 4:30:00 PM | Track and Field

Lopes wrap up final out-of-state meet of regular season

By: Josh Hauser

AZUSA, California — The Grand Canyon track and field teams competed in their final out-of-state meet before the WAC Championships, setting four new school records at Azusa Pacific's Bryan Clay Invitational this week.

GCU wasted no time rewriting history, breaking two records on the first day.

"Our performances started off with a bang," Lopes head coach Tom Flood said. "Both Landon Rast (3,000-meter steeplechase) and Alexa Hokanson (800-meter) set school records, but the fireworks kept coming throughout the rest of the competition."

The program had never seen a sub-9-minute mark in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, but Rast and sophomore Braedon Palmer posted marks faster than 9 minutes. Rast's mark of 8 minutes, 58.83 seconds is the new school record and Palmer was just moments behind with a time of 8:59.66.

Hokanson broke her school record in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:04.38.

The meet's final day saw senior Samaria McDonald break GCU's hammer throw record and senior Jacob Lewis set the 1,500-meter record. McDonald bested her mark with a throw of 61.85 meters, the best at the event. Lewis topped his mark with a run of 3:41.92.

"Jacob's time of 3:41.92 is the equivalent of running a sub-4:00 mile," Flood noted.

"I was also impressed with Jazmine Scott's and Taryn Burkett's performances in the triple jump. Jazmine's mark of 12.75 meters would have broken our school record but the wind was just over the allowable 2.0m/second to count. But both her and Taryn's (12.66-meter) performances were impressive nonetheless."

Flood noticed a few final impressive performances of the meet.

"I was also really pleased with Palmer's great performance in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and it was really nice to see Onome Ogbeni over 50 meters in the discus (50.07) and Jorden Okyere over 60 meters to win the hammer throw (60.50)."

The Lopes have two meets remaining — one in Tempe and one in Tucson — before heading to Seattle for the WAC Outdoor Championships beginning May 12.

"We will enjoy the rest of the blessed Easter weekend before we get back to work on Monday and prepare for another great meet at the ASU Twilight meet," Flood said.