SAU Sports Information
They say it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish and that was definitely the case for the SAU men’s track and field team on Saturday as the Muleriders erased a 26-point deficit entering the final day of action en route to running away with the 2018 GAC Championship. It was the program’s first league title as an NCAA Division II member and its first championship since the 1985 season when SAU claimed the AIC title.
The Muleriders, who topped GAC runner-Up Oklahoma Baptist by 25.5 points and two-time league champion Harding by 43 points, dominated the competition on Saturday and finished with 191.5 total points. SAU registered 27 point-scoring finishes and totaled 162.5 points on the final day of competition alone. Of those 27 point-scoring finishes, the SAU men won six events and set four NCAA Division II Provisional Qualifying Times/Marks in the process. Seventeen of SAU’s Top-6 finishes came in personal best efforts to highlight the Muleriders’ historic team performance on their home track.
SAU produced 10 or more points in ten events on Saturday afternoon including 26 points in an almost complete mastery of both the long jump and 200 meter events. The Muleriders earned 26 of the possible 31 points in the long jump event and claimed 22 of the points in the 200 meter.
Southern Arkansas, which was locked into first place entering the 4x400 relay, placed an emphatic exclamation point on the three-day event as the Muleriders raced to a first-place finish behind an NCAA Division II Provisional Qualifying effort amid a frenzied infield and a euphoric grandstand.
On Saturday, 14 Muleriders and a pair of relay teams earned All-GAC First Team honors with podium finishes and a dozen SAU athletes garnered All-GAC Second-Team honors by placing 4th through 6th in their respective events.
Individually, Karonce Higgins was named the Most Valuable Athlete for the Championships after claiming the High Point Award as he registered 33 total points. Within that total, Higgins won both the long jump (10 points) and 200 meter events (10 points), placed second in the 100 meter (8 points) and ran on both relay teams (2.5 points each) that claimed the top spot on the podium.