Idaho Captures Big Sky Title Behind Midnight Relay Win

It came down to the final event of the evening to decide the Men’s Big Sky Outdoor Championship as the University of Idaho men’s track and field team overcame adversity and high temperatures to capture its second consecutive Big Sky Outdoor Championship.

Idaho and Boise State were tied with 114 points apiece going into the final event, but the Vandals ran away with the 4x400 meter relay and finished just ahead of Boise State 124-122. The relay team of Tawanda Chiwira, Scott Whalen, Jason St. Hill, and Felix Kamangirira posted a final time of 3:11.46, beating Boise State, which ran second in 3:12.98.

It seemed fitting that the two schools, competing in their final Big Sky Conference event, battled past Saturday midnight and into Sunday morning.

“Coach (Keller) pulled us aside and told us the situation,” said Kamangirira. “We knew what we had to do. I just had to hold on to it.”

“I went out with the intention of getting us the lead,” said Chiwira. “We just had to make sure we didn’t get disqualified.”

Idaho won its fourth and final Big Sky title (1981, 1983, 1995, 1996) with the narrowest margin of victory since 1972, when Northern Arizona beat Idaho State 71-70. Idaho’s 122 points were the fewest by a winning team since Northern Arizona won with 114 in 1990.

The Vandals won without two of its top athletes - Niels Kruller and Chris Kwaramba - scoring a single point in their specialties.

Kruller injured his hamstring in the 100-meter preliminaries late Friday night. Kwaramba failed to execute a legal jump in the triple-jump preliminaries late Saturday night. Each brought the conference’s top mark into the championships.

“We fought off adversity the entire meet,” said coach Mike Keller, whose 22-year tenure at Idaho includes all four titles. “Our guys kept fighting to the very end, and we had some guys step it up unexpectedly. They are a great bunch of kids, and this is a nice way to finish our years in the Big Sky.”

Idaho received clutch performances from several athletes and an assist from Northern Arizona’s John Howell in the 5,000-meter run.

The Vandals led Boise State 114-106 entering the 5,000, which was the meet’s next-to-last race.

Boise State’s Jose Uribe led with a little more than a lap to go when Howell pulled ahead. Uribe retook the lead with 200 meters left, but Howell passed Uribe again with 100 meters to run and held him off with a winning time of 14:29.12. Uribe ran second in 14:29.67.

Had Uribe won, Boise State’s second-place finish in the 4x400 relay would have given the Broncos a share of the title.

Freshman Tawanda Chiwira, a mid-semester transfer, had a big night, winning the 200- and 400-meter races and running a leg on both victorious relay teams. Chiwira’s triumph over Walter Reed in the 200, two races before the final relay, was instrumental to Idaho’s victory. He ran a 21.18 to beat Reed by just .05 seconds.

“My strategy was to go out with confidence,” said Chiwira. “I had to go out and get ahead of him (Reed) the first 100 meters. I felt him closing on me, but I struggled by at the end.”

Senior hurdler Paul Thompson was named Track Athlete of the Meet after winning the 400-meter hurdles. On Friday night, in the trials, he automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships while breaking the Big Sky Conference Championship record with a time of 50.16. He won Saturday’s final in 51 seconds flat, becoming only the second Idaho athlete to win the event. Mike Kinney was Idaho’s only previous winner in 1983.

“That tops off a great season,” Thompson said. “This was a team effort, but this was the icing on the cake. We have a great bunch of athletes and we just came together when we needed to at the end.”

Senior Thad Hathaway completed a sweep of the indoor and outdoor high-jump titles by winning his second straight outdoor championship with a best of 7-0-1/4. He became the first athlete to win back-to-back outdoor titles in the event since 1988.

Hathaway, who came to Idaho last year from Eastern Oregon State College, won both the indoor and outdoor Big Sky titles the last two years.

Although Hathaway was happy he won, he was disappointed by a narrow miss at 7-3, that probably would have qualified him for NCAA nationals. Hathaway barely nicked the bar on the way down on his first attempt.

“That jump would have gotten me to nationals,” said Hathaway. “That first jump felt real good, but I just barely missed it. It’s nice to win, to get 10 points for the team.”

“We made up a lot of points in this event,” said Keller. “The high jump was a big one for us and helped carry us to the championship.”

The Vandals scored 18 points in the 400-meter hurdles. Scott Whalen overcame Ryan Renz of Boise State and Brent Sampson of Montana State to finish second behind Thompson.

“I’m stronger than most of the other guys and that helps me in the end,” said Whalen, who had a personal best of 51.35. “It was my fastest time of the year, so I can’t complain. It would have been nice to beat Paul once, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Idaho defended its 4x100-meter relay title even without its strongest runner, Niels Kruller. Garth Chadband, St. Hill, Kamangirira and Chiwira teamed up to win with a season-best time of 40.36. Idaho won the event for the ninth time, more than any other school.

The Idaho women finished in eighth and last place with 15 points.

Northern Arizona ended Boise State’s two-year reign with 134 points. The Broncos finished second with 122.

Junior hurdler Tara Gehrke posted the highest Vandals finish with a third in the 400-meter hurdles, season-best time of 1:01.21.

xxxx