Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Macon, Ga. – The Atlantic Sun Outdoor Track and Field Championships return to the state of Tennessee for just the second time in league history as the competitors head to Johnson City for the 2007 event beginning on Friday. The last time the event was held in Tennessee, 2005, Troy University captured its seventh men’s title in eight years while the University of Central Florida women garnered their sixth consecutive championship.

This time around two schools are seeking just their second consecutive A-Sun titles, but will face a strengthened field of competition.

Combined, 18 athletes posted regional qualifying marks during the regular season with Belmont’s Lynette Rives and Campbell’s Alicia Valtin each qualifying in multiple events.

Both earned their respective positions on the track but did it in entirely different ways. Rives specializes in the short races, holding league-best times in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes this season. Rives also holds the league’s third fastest time in the 400-meter dash, an event she won at the last year’s meet.

Valtin on the other hand enjoys the longer distances. She currently boasts the A-Sun’s fastest times in the 1,500-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Valtin already holds the league record in the 1,500 and her fastest time this season in the steeplechase would demolish the A-Sun record by nearly 25 seconds.

In 2006, Jacksonville captured its first ever A-Sun women’s outdoor track and field championship by 45 points over Gardner-Webb. The Dolphins enter the 2007 event as favorites to repeat after running away with the indoor title and posting seven regular season top performances. A win for Jacksonville would give the Dolphins their fourth straight track and field title since the inception of indoor track and field in 2006. To date, no team on either the men’s or women’s side, other than Jacksonville, has won both the indoor and outdoor titles in the same seasons.

ETSU will be looking to change that after the Buccaneers captured the 2007 men’s indoor championship. The Bucs have never won an outdoor title and finished 69 points behind Gardner-Webb last season in third place. ETSU will look to James Rainer on the track to supply the team with some much-needed points.

Rainer enters the competition with the league’s fastest time in the 100-meter dash, having posted a regional qualifying mark in the event with his time of 10.43. Last season, Rainer won both the 100 and the 200 at the championship meet.

The Bucs will battle a Gardner-Webb squad that won all but one field event at the 2006 championship meet. The Bulldogs earned 70 or their 194 points by capturing individual titles in the pole vault, long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus, hammer throw, and javelin. The 2007 championship could see much of the same as GWU enters the meet with the best A-Sun individual marks in six of eight field events.

Gardner-Webb’s Jake Didion won the long jump and the triple jump in 2006, but will have to face Campbell’s Sam Tilly in both events in what could be one of the best competitions at the meet. Didion currently leads the league with the best triple jump, posting a regional qualifying mark of 50-8 (15.44m), while Tilly has posted the A-Sun’s best long jump at 25-2 3/4 (7.69m), also a regional qualifying mark.

The two also competed at the 2007 indoor championship where they split with Tilly winning the long jump and Didion claiming top triple jump honors.

Tilly will also battle on the track, where he currently holds the A-Sun’s best time in the 200-meter dash.

Colin Magut and Cody MacArthur were tabbed the Most Valuable Performers on the men’s side at the 2006 meet. Both return and enter the competition holding two top marks in the Atlantic Sun. Magut, a distance runner from Kenya, earned similar honors as this year’s indoor meet and leads the league in the 1,500 and the 5,000. His time in the 5,000 (14:02.98) has also earned him a spot at a NCAA regional meet. He posted his regional qualifying time in the event on April 29 along with teammates Ryan Snellen and Jacob Buckman at the Cardinal Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.

MacArthur, returns as the favorite to repeat as the individual champion in the discus and the hammer throw. At the outdoor meet last year, MacArthur set an Atlantic Sun record in the hammer throw (164-7; 50.18m). This season his best mark stands at 173-11 (53.01m) as he looks to re-write the record books again. His mark this season in the discus is nearly 11 inches better than his winning toss from a year ago.

Jacksonville’s Janita Ocana and North Florida’s Emily Kohler earned similar honors on the women’s side for their efforts at the 2006 outdoor track and field championships.

Ocana enters the competition with the league’s second-best long jump mark (20-3; 6.17m) behind teammate Natasha Harvey (20-6 1/2; 6.26m). Ocana is also a force for the Dolphins on the short track where she has posted top-five A-Sun marks in the 100, 200, and 400 during the regular season.

Although Kohler does not hold any league-best marks entering the meet, she still appears to be a points-getter for the Ospreys. Kohler holds top-five marks in the high jump, long jump, triple jump and javelin.

The 2007 Atlantic Sun Track and Field Championships are being held in Johnson City, Tenn. Beginning on Friday and ending on Saturday. For complete coverage of the event, visit the A-Sun Track and Field Championships page online at www.atlanticsun.org. Each day the site will be updated with complete statistics, broken records, a final recap, and interviews with coaches and athletes.