Lopes secure 4th consecutive men's WAC outdoor title

Thursday, May 9

Orem, Utah

Grand Canyon

WAC Outdoor Championships

Photo by: Nathan Peters

5/11/2024 9:27:00 PM | Track and Field

GCU seniors end WAC careers with clutch performances in Utah

By: Nathan Peters

OREM, Utah — The Grand Canyon men's track and field program has once again shown the conference domination with its fourth consecutive WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships title.

The Lopes claimed the title Saturday with 153 points, 28 ahead of runner-up Southern Utah.

"This weekend's WAC men's track and field championship was a total team effort," Lopes head coach Tom Flood said. "What made this one extra special was to see so many seniors finish out their final conference championships with so many outstanding performances."

One of those GCU seniors was Karsten Santaella, who was projected to place ninth in the discus competition but ended up with a throw exceeding 167 feet to claim second in the conference.

Okyere with trophies and medals

"Jorden Okyere finished out his final championship, back where it all started, and in true Paul Coro story fashion, where he was named the Men's Outstanding Field Performer of the meet," Flood said.

The reference is to the storybook WAC finish for Okyere, who was a freshman on the last GCU team to not win an outdoor men's title when the meet also was at Utah Valley. In that meet, Okyere had a rough finish.

This year, Okyere had a pair of top-two finishes by winning the shot put competition and being the runner-up in the hammer throw, earning Okyere the Outstanding Field Performer honor.

"All glory to God, obviously," Okyere said. "It was a good way to end my last one. It feels great. It's emotional. It kind of doesn't hit you until you're done. Every time I finished a throwing event, I realized that it was my last time throwing in the WAC. It hits your soul a little bit. I am just blessed to have been here."

The winner of the hammer was fellow Lopes graduate Israel Oloyede.

"We also had conference champion performances from Israel in the hammer, Casey Tow in the decathlon, and finally, by Ben Moffett in the javelin," Flood said.

Tow took the decathlon gold Friday and doubled back with a podium finish in the javelin competition Saturday afternoon. The javelin was highlighted by Moffett's personal-best winning mark of 68.63 meters.

"Daviciea McCartney and Erin Brown put on a show with two individual champion performances each and several school records," Flood said.

McCartney began by winning the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 13.69 seconds. The mark was worthy of a school record as well as breaking a 30-year-old WAC record. The senior doubled back for a come-from-behind victory in the 400-meter hurdles with another GCU record time of 49.99 seconds.

If McCartney's showmanship wasn't enough, Brown made sure to add some flash.

For the Lopes senior, a 100-meter win of 10.36 seconds was emphasized with a Michael Jordan shrug as he crossed the finish line. Not long after, Brown broke his own school record in the 200-meter dash with a time of 20.55 seconds, holding a No. 1 finger up as he crossed the line. In addition to the individual golds, Brown picked up a silver in the 4x100 relay.

The women edged UT Arlington by a half-point to place second in the WAC with 118 points behind host Utah Valley's 177.

The Lopes women were highlighted Saturday by an 800-meter victory for Joanna Archer, along with second-place finishes for Taryn Burkett in the triple jump and Onome Ogbeni in the discus.

"We will enjoy this championship for a couple of days before preparing to take what will be our largest group yet to the NCAA West Regional at Arkansas in a couple of weeks," Flood said.

Full results from the WAC Championships can be found here.