Track sweeps Big South
Third consecutive double-crowning for indoor teams
Another year meant another title for the Liberty Flames track and field team. The Flames recently claimed the top spot on both the men’s and women’s side at the 2012 Big South Indoor Track and Field Championships, marking the third consecutive year that both teams were crowned champions at the conference title meet.
The two-day event in Blacksburg took place Feb. 24-25.
“We have a good thing going on at Liberty athletics,” head coach Brant Tolsma said. “We are a unique school with a unique mission. We feel like we have the most going for us of any Big South school, so we expect to win.”
On the men’s side, Liberty dominated as they have traditionally done, having won all 15 of the indoor conference championships that have been held by the Big South. The Flames ended with 168 points, 70 points higher than their nearest competitors, Charleston Southern and Radford.
With their 15 straight titles, the team has set a school mark for most consecutive conference championships won of any sports team in the history of the Big South.
The commanding win can be attributed to across the board success by the team. Freshman sprinter Leonard Robbins ran his best time ever in the 400-meter dash at 48.7 seconds. Sprinters Kyle Gill, Taylor Courtney and Andre Washington were tops in the 4 x 400 meter relay, winning the event by .03 seconds, and Liberty also claimed the top spots in the high jump and the pole vault. Perhaps the most impressive showing of the day was by the team’s shot put squad, who had four of the top six scores in the event. Led by junior Ryan Smith, the team itself racked up 23 points, which put the Flames out of striking distance, where they remained the whole meet.
The Lady Flames were just as impressive as their male counterparts, scoring 187 points to edge out rival Coastal Carolina by 12.5 points. The win marked the team’s third straight title and tenth overall.
Senior standout distance runner Jennifer Klugh led the way, winning the mile and placing second in the 5k on her way to scoring 28 points for the team. The high jump team had four participants place in the top eight, and freshman standout Mychelle Cummings became the first member of the Lady Flames to win the shot put event.
“I’m really excited about her future,” Tolsma said of Cummings. “She’s going to be a real impact athlete for us. I expect her to compete in Nationals in the future.”
Tolsma said that the turning point in the women’s meet was an impromptu cheering session by the whole Flames team during the 5000-meter race. Down by 2.5 points heading into the final two events, the Lady Flames needed a strong showing by their 5000-meter team to put themselves in position to win. Midway through the event, with the outcome still in limbo, members of the team stood on their respective sidelines and started a we-say-you-say chant of “L-U.”
“The girls were patient, and little by little they started moving up, and then the chants started up like the chants at the football games, and the girls started pulling away into the lead. The girls were just inspired by it, and they took off. They just ran tremendous and solidified the meet,” Tolsma said. “It was the dagger.”
“Not one team out there this weekend compared to the support our team gives to each other,” junior Khristina Kanagy said in an email to coach Tolsma. “I feel so honored to be a part of this team and that God would use me in the platform of running,” Klugh added.
The Flames will head back to Lynchburg with championship hardware, as athletes rack up individual awards across the board. Klugh, who as a freshman tore her ACL and battled through adversity to recover, won her second straight Most Outstanding Track Performer award and is sure to go down as one of the greatest runners in school history. Freshman teammates Robbins and jumper Kyle Wheeler shared the award for Freshman of the Year, and distance runner Caleb Edmonds and hurdler Rachel Houseknecht were named to the conferences All-Academic team.
“It’s so satisfying to win with those kind of people. When character wins, everybody is happy. I love to see good kids who love the Lord do well and inspire each other and accomplish things beyond what they think they can do,” Tolsma said.
Tolsma knows a thing or two about winning himself. In his 26 years of leading the men’s and women’s team, he has been named coach of the year a total of 49 times. Tolsma said he views the award as an indication of the strength of his staff. He also said he feels proud to carry on a winning tradition first dreamed of by Jerry Falwell Sr.
“Dr. Falwell’s original vision was that their would be a Bible-believing, conservative school that gave people the same opportunity they would have at other universities. I think it certainly is approaching that fast. It’s a lot of fun to be involved with that mission and that call.”
Tolsma and the team’s attention now turns to this upcoming weekend, when the team will head to Boston for the ECAC and IC4A Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships.