By KYLE ROBERTS

Sports Writer

Tech's outdoor track and field program rounded out its stellar year at the NCAA championships June 9 in Austin, Texas, at Mike A. Meyers Track Stadium with solid marks and individual top-25 finishes.

"We had a very good national meet," Tech track and field head coach Gary Stanley said.

"We took the second most athletes in the state to Texas, and of the nine athletes that we took all but one finished in a higher position than they were ranked."

The highest finish was Brenda-Grace Hunt, who finished 10th in the nation in javelin by posting a mark of 155-1 in the semifinals.

The women's 1,600-meter relay team of Nina Gilbert, Latonia Wilson, Krystal Cole and Doria Appleberry ran the second best time in school history at 3 minutes 35.51 seconds to finish 15th in the nation.

"This isn't just a regular track meet," Stanley said.

"This isn't regionals or conference. These finishes are in the top ranks of the nation."

Other notable finishes for Tech were Appleberry in the women's 400-meter hurdles with a time of 58.68 to finish 17th in the nation and Ayanna Alexander in the triple jump with a mark of 42-1 1/2 to finish 16th in the nation and Troy Lewis in the men's 200-meter dash with a mark of 21.10 seconds to finish 24th in the country.

"Overall, I was very pleased with the national meet," Stanley said.

"We would have liked to have finished higher, but most of the kids are very young and I thought they composed themselves very well in the national meet. Hopefully next year we'll see even better results."

Almost a month prior, the track squads traveled to Houston May 13 for the Western Athletic Conference championships where the men finished fifth and the women missed a championship by five total points. Rice University swept both divisions.

"I think when you look at the whole year we had an outstanding track program," Stanley said.

"Our men finished fifth under teams like Rice, University of Texas at El Paso, Fresno State and Boise State, and three of those teams were in the top 20 in the nation. And for our women to finish just a hair short was slightly disappointing, but looking at the big picture, we had a great year."

Stanley was also voted WAC women's track and field coach of the year by fellow conference coaches after the meet.

"I think two things about the award," Stanley said. "It's an award that goes to the kids and to the coaching staff as well. I'm not saying that just to be nice; that's the truth. It's a reflection of what other coaches thought about what we did with what we had this year."

Stanley said that the coach of the winning team is almost always the default winner and that he was very surprised when his name was called.

"I thought somebody was going to protest something," Stanley said jokingly. "It's usually an automatic that it goes to the winning coach. I was sitting down when they called my name and I was very much caught off guard, so I just walked over and shared the award with the assistant coaches."

Stanley was very proud to receive the award but said he would trade it for a conference championship in a heartbeat.

"Our girls were so close they could taste the win," Stanley said. "I would trade the award 100 times over for a chance to win the championship and get those kids a ring."