Smith stuns field
at NCAA regional
Brigham Young-Hawaii freshman Chelsea Smith finished a surprising fourth place at the NCAA Div. II Western Regional at Fresno, Calif., yesterday.Smith also set a school 6K record with her time of 22:13 and will join Hawaii Pacific's Sayuri Kusutani and Nina Christensen at the national meet to be held in two weeks in Ashland, Ohio.
Kusutani finished second overall, 21 seconds behind Ann Marie Housen of Cal State Los Angeles, who ran the course in 21:27. Christensen, who won the race last year, could only manage fifth place with a time of 22:15.
UC Davis won the team title, with HPU in eighth, BYUH in 13th and Chaminade in 18th.
Madsen still running: HPU senior Christian Madsen's collegiate career will be extended one more race, as he also qualified for the national meet.
Madsen, who also won the regional last year, came in sixth this time around. He ran the 10K course in 32:45, 49 seconds behind champion Paul Kezes of Western Washington.
Madsen was 38 seconds slower than in last year's regional, which was held at Bellingham, Wash.
Abdeslam Naji finished behind 36 other runners and the Sea Warriors finished 10th as a team. Chris Larson was not far behind in 45th.
Chaminade finished 13th behind Jeff Lim's 67th place finish and BYUH was 14th. Steve Soelberg came in 69th as the Seasiders top finisher.
Vulcans swept by Montana State Billings
Hawaii-Hilo was swept 30-25, 30-28, 30-21 by Montana State-Billings one night after falling to fifth in the six-team Pacific West Conference.Tiffanie Ollison led the Vulcans with 14 kills and Cheriesse Shiroma added 13. Sara Pilgreen only scored 6 kills but got 11 digs.
Karissa Gerretsen and Katrina Dahlgren led MSUB with 15 kills each. Dahlgren hit .609 in 23 attempts.
The Vulcans (7-16, 3-6) hit only .168 while the Yellowjackets (9-15, 3-6) hit .206.
Hawaii-Hilo heads to Silver City, N.M., to play Western New Mexico -- who are in last place in the conference at 2-7 -- Tomorrow and Tuesday.