The 2008 KCAC Championship Track and Field meet hosted by Friends University came down to the wire Saturday evening, May 3. Despite a nail-biting effort by the Falcon ladies to capture the women’s team title, when the final scores were tallied, Southwestern College took home their sixteenth consecutive championship plaque. In the tightest competition in KCAC women’s history, Southwestern edged out the Lady Falcons 177 to 166 in total points. Tabor College also put up a serious challenge for the title finishing third with 115 points.
On the men’s side, Southwestern also took top honors, amassing 252 points to Bethel College’s 96. Tabor was third with 88.5 and Friends University’s men’s squad came in fourth with 83 points.
“It has been a season of incredible highs,” Coach Winston Kenton observed. “And right now, I wouldn’t say that this is a low. The women achieved remarkable things this season. We did things some said couldn’t be done. We qualified every single relay for Nationals, we qualified the highest number of athletes ever for Nationals, and we broke team records, KCAC records, and competed with the very best at every level. But right now, I know the girls are hurting like they’ve never hurt before.”
Haylie Bolan was awarded Most Valuable Female Athlete of the Year on the basis of her wins in the 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, 400 meter dash, and running the anchor legs of both the winning 4 x 100 meter and 4 x 400 meter relays, as well as a fifth place effort in the long jump. All together, Haylie contributed a total of 37 points to the team total of 166. Coach Kenton received Co-Women’s Coach of the Year honors, sharing the honor with Coach Mike Kirkland from Southwestern College. Jim Helmer from Southwestern was named Men’s Coach of the Year.
The women’s team title remained in doubt to the very end. With the point total so close, Coach Kenton knew that his women’s 4 x 400 meter relay team would need to win the final race of the evening to keep any hope of a title alive. Although the relay had never actually competed together, Kenton knew that the combined talents of Sara Wiebe, Ta’Vionna Polley-Davis, Liz Barton, and Haylie Bolan would probably be enough to win the race and capture another ten points toward the team point totals. The relay performed as expected, clocking 3:58.59, which is good enough to qualify the relay for the NAIA National Championships provisional standard. The time also lowered the Friends University school record by over twenty seconds and established a KCAC Championships Meet record. But when the final scores were tallied, an eleven point margin remained.
