JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – For the first time in its illustrious track & field history, both the men’s and women’s teams of Azusa Pacific track & field are reigning national champions. The Cougars swept the NAIA Indoor Track & Field team championships during today’s third and final day of competition to become only the fifth school ever to capture both NAIA titles in the same meet.

As expected, the Cougar women ran away from the competition, and beat second place Doane College (Neb.), 121-51. The 121 points are third highest in NAIA championship history and the 70-point margin of victory is the second largest ever. The Cougar women claim their first ever national title after finishing second three times before.

Azusa Pacific garnered 32 points alone in the throws, relying on sophomore Vivian Chukweumeka, who after winning the 20-pound weight throw with a meet-record performance yesterday, captured the shot put title today with another NAIA record of 59’ 2”. Senior Vanessa Wilhelm, who was second to Chukweumeka in the weight, finished third in the shot with an effort of 44’ 11¾.”

Along with Chukweumeka, sophomore Brianna Carstensen carried the Azusa Pacific banner in rather grand fashion. During Friday’s events she anchored the Cougars to a victory in the 4x800-meter relay and then came back Saturday to not only lead the Cougars to a victory in the distance medley relay with a school-record 11:54.52 but then won the 1000 meters with an NAIA meet record 2:50.54.

Junior Janessa Lepp picked up her first-ever NAIA individual championship by winning the 400 meters with a 57.15. Lepp closed the meet by anchoring the Cougars to victory in the 4x400-meter relay with a 3:52.83. In all, Azusa Pacific women won 7 of the 21 events, including all 3 relays.

Meanwhile the Azusa Pacific men, who were expected to be in a dogfight in order to successfully defend in indoor championship, surprisingly won 3 of 5 running events early in Saturday’s competition to take the lead and then move away from Oklahoma Baptist, which had expected to push the Cougars for the title.

Senior Dominique DeGrammont opened the victory march by taking the 55-meter high hurdles with a 7.30. A sub-par semifinal on Friday put DeGrammont in lane one for the finals, which in hindsight proved to be an advantage. Pre-meet favorite Ricardo Melbourne of Central State fell over the first hurdle and created a collision that DeGrammont was able to avoid by being in the first lane. As a result he cruised by the field to win the event, missing the meet record by just .01 of a second.

Moments later junior Nate Farris won the 600 meters, clocking a personal-record 1:18.16. On the heels of Farris’ victory, sophomore Tim Ramirez then won the 800 meters with a personal-record 1:53.91, winning the event by nearly a full second. By the time Ramirez crossed the finished line, Azusa Pacific had a quick 30-point blitz and owned an insurmountable 44-21 lead over Oklahoma Baptist. Staggered by the Cougar strike, Oklahoma Baptist struggled the rest of the way and didn’t finish in the top three.

The Cougar men won the title with 61 points. MidAmerica Nazarene was second with 43.5. For Azusa Pacific this is its 16th NAIA track & field championship since 1983, its third on the indoor circuit.

Chukweumeka, who set two NAIA records, and Carstensen, who was part of 3 event victories including a meet record, were named Female Co-Outstanding Performers of the Meet. Azusa Pacific head coaches Mike Barnett (women) and Kevin Reid (men) were tabbed as NAIA Indoor National Coaches of the Year.