WAC Outdoor 3-peat complete for Lopes

Thursday, May 11

Nacogdoches, Texas

Grand Canyon

WAC Outdoor Championships

Photo by: Nathan Peters

5/14/2023 1:09:00 AM | Track and Field

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True team effort in Texas earns GCU another conference men's trophy

By: Nathan Peters

NACOGDOCHES, Texas — The Grand Canyon track and field team continued its dynasty with its third consecutive men's WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships title on Saturday.

"What a wonderful day to be a member of the GCU track and field family, and it was a great day at the Oval Office," Lopes head coach Tom Flood said after his program claimed its fifth men's title in the past seven WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

The Lopes earned the title with 162.5 points, 33.5 more than runner-up Southern Utah. During its three-peat, GCU has outperformed the runners-up by a dominant average of 41.5 points. Utah State is the only other program to win three consecutive WAC men's outdoor titles in the 2000s.

The GCU effort was led by having conference champions in the discus (junior Oscar Rodriguez), 100-meter dash (senior Kyle De Moica), 400-meter dash (junior Erin Brown) and the 400-meter relay.

The meet's final day at Stephen F. Austin started with the pole vault coming up with 13.5 big points for the Lopes. Junior Eric Cabais-Fernandez, a Hawaii native, took second by reaching 17 feet, 1/4 inch, with fifth- and seventh-place finishes from senior Grant Hagaman and junior Evan Dudley, respectively.

In the triple jump, junior Derrick Nwagwu had the second-best all-time GCU mark and picked up another six points for the team score. Nwagwu, who is from Aurora, Colorado, jumped 51 feet, 1 3/4 inches in the finals to claim third.

Discus provided 15 points between Rodriguez and fellow Lopes junior Karsten Santaella.
Oscar Rodriguez

Rodriguez became GCU's first WAC men's outdoor discus champion in program history with a 183-foot, 8-inch mark, and is the WAC's first two-time discus champion since 2011 (he won for Tarleton in 2021). Coupled with a fifth-place hammer throw finish on Friday, the native of Del Rio, Texas, earned the conference coaches' votes as the meet's Outstanding Field Performer award. Santaella placed fourth in discus at 171 feet, 10 inches.

"I was finally able to breathe after watching the men's 4x100 relay get the stick around the track and win the WAC championship," Flood said of the relay extending the Lopes' lead early in Saturday's action.

GCU's first men's outdoor 400 relay win since 2018 was made up of Adam Knuff, Mariano Hernandez, Conner Kittleson and De Moica, who covered the loop in 36.69 seconds.

Just as the men's 400 competition was going to begin, the meet stalled because of lightning in the area.

Brown, running out of Lane 6, destroyed the 400 school record to win the race in 45.85 seconds, the top time in the WAC and the 23rd-best time in the West Region. Brown used a strong start and an even better close, passing Abilene Christian senior Jared Wiliams on the final stretch. Hernandez took fifth with a time of 46.37 seconds, which is No. 2 all-time for the Lopes.

"After a long weather delay, I was thrilled with the performances of Erin and Mariano," Flood said.

Kyle De Moica

In the 100, De Moica once again came up big for his team and backed up his top preliminary time. De Moica passed the race's early leader at the midpoint and took first in 10.37 seconds, just ahead of freshman Conner Kittleson, who placed third in 10.43 to give GCU an event total of 16 points. De Moica is the first Lope to win the 100 since Ryan Girk took WAC gold in 2017 and 2018.

"Kyle might have shocked everyone in the stands but not his coaches and teammates with his victory in the 100," Flood said. "He's had an amazing senior season. The future of GCU men's sprinting looks bright with Conner carrying the baton."

In the 800 final, the Lopes went second and fifth for 12 more points, thanks to freshman Jarron Stevens (1:50.11) and sophomore Alex Rafferty (1:51.62).

"True freshman Jarron has so much untapped potential," Flood said. "I'm already excited to watch him next season. Alex had another great race."

In the final of the 400 hurdles, senior Matthew Howard and freshman Jonathan Dixon went fourth and eighth with times of 53.68 and 55.40, respectively.

"It was heartbreaking watching Matthew get tangled up with another competitor when he at least had a second-place finish in the bag," Flood said. "It was nice to see native Texan Jonathan grab the always important point."

In a stacked 200 final, the Lopes scored with four runners in third, fourth, sixth and eighth places for 15 total points. Brown and De Moica took third and fourth wit Hernandez and Kitleson following in sixth and eighth, respectively.

"With a quick turnaround, Erin broke his second GCU school record on the day with his 20.73 (No. 37 in the West Region), quickly followed by Kyle's 20.83 (No. 52 West Region), Mariano's 21.07 and a banged-up Conner (after a spill in the 100) running 21.21," Flood said.

In one of the last events of the evening, junior Cannon Angotti doubled back and earned an impressive sixth-place finish in the 5,000. Despite the Texas heat, Angotti received three points with a time of 14 minutes, 40.54 seconds.

The Saturday efforts built on the success of the meet's first two days, when senior Aidan Diggs and junior Patrick Nelson finished second and fourth, respectively, in the decathlon for 13 points. The Lopes also scored 15 points in the javelin, where freshman Walter Moffett took second ahead of junior Marten Gasparini, limited to two throws by injury, in fourth and freshman Jacob Nash in seventh.

In addition to Rodriguez's fifth-place finish, junior Andrew Wells made it a 12-point event by taking second place with more throwers' scoring coming from senior Maxwel Myers' sixth-place effort in the shot put. The Lopes' Friday scoring was rounded out by three steeplechase points from Agnotti following fellow junior Jacob Pringle for seventh- and eighth-place finishes.

Flood won yet another Men's Coach of the Year award after leading his team to a third straight outdoor championship.

"We will look forward to getting a couple of days rest and then watch our biggest GCU regionals crew yet compete in two weeks in Sacramento," Flood said.

Results can be found here.