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Handa drives away with Wildcat of the Week honors
Brent Handa (left) and Jimmy Elam run away from the pack at the CCAA Championships en route to finishing 1-2.
10/27/2009 5:28:34 PM
Chico State distance runner Brent Handa has earned his second biggest honor of the past few days. Named the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Newcomer of the Year after finishing second at the CCAA Championships on Saturday, Handa has now been named a Wildcat of the Week.
Handa, a junior transfer from Cal State Fullerton, was considering using this campaign as his redshirt year, but after injuries weekend the men's team - ranked 3rd nationally - Handa stepped in to pick up the slack.
The Fall River High School product ended up doing much more than that. Handa covered the eight-kilometer course in McKinleyville in 24:57.2, finishing behind only teammate Jimmy Elam, who nipped him by seven seconds.
Handa's efforts helped the Wildcats dominate the rest of the field and win their eighth consecutive conference title. He also added an All-CCAA honor to his resume.
Handa and the Wildcats now set their gaze on the West Region Championships, set for Nov. 7 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They'll be running for their eighth straight Regional title.
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Wildcats of the Week
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Men's Golf
Sylvester Gama carded three consecutive sub-par rounds and finished alone in second place at 7-under par at the Coyote Classic last Monday and Tuesday. Gama, competing as an individual, finished six strokes clear of third place in a standout performance that was bettered only by Cal State San Bernardino's Gene Webster, Jr.
Gama went 2-under in the opening round on the par-70 course at Arrowhead Country Club. He went 1-under in the afternoon. And on Tuesday, Gama's 66 was bettered only by Webster and matched his teammate Kyle Souza for the third lowest round of the tournament.
A 6-foot senior from Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara CC), Gama has now gone under par in eight of his 16 rounds of the 2009-10 season. His stroke average of 72.1 is second on the Wildcats as are his three top-five finishes.
Those efforts have made him easily the team's most improved player thus far this season. His stroke average was 75.3 last season and he had just one top-10 finish - an eighth-place finish at the CCAA Championships.
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Women's Track
There’s something about the annual Chico Multi that always brings out the best in heptathlete Kelly Clancey. For the second straight year, the junior from Modesto earned an NCAA Championships provisional bid in the heptathlon during the two-day Chico Multi, collecting 4,743 total points over the seven events, easily surpassing the 4,400 points needed to secure the provisional bid.
Clancey was the dominant athlete in the 12-person field, taking first place in four of the seven hepthatlon events. She took top honors in the high jump (5 feet, 3.25 inches), long jump (17 feet, 9.5 inches), 100-meter hurdles (15.42 seconds) and the 800-meter run (2 minutes, 20.25 second), while finishing second in the 200-meter dash (26.34 seconds), fourth in the shot put and sixth in the javelin throw.
Clancey, already well ahead of last season's schedule in which she scored a 4,400 in the Chico Multi and went on to post a career-best 4,811 at the CCAA Championships and advance to the NCAA Championships, will try to better her provisional mark March 24-25 at the California Multi, hosted by UC Berkeley.
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11.24.09 | Men's Cross Country
Jimmy Elam could not stand on his own after crossing the finish line in 15th place at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships. He was in tremendous pain. It hurt so good. "It was a pretty cool experience knowing that I actually gave it everything I had in my last college cross country race," he said afterward.
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11.21.09 | Men's Cross Country
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – While most of Jimmy Elam’s peers at Humboldt State were mulling over where to get a good, cheap meal, which classes to take, or who to have as a roommate, he was making one of the toughest, boldest, and in some senses, the costliest decision of his young life. After spending his first three years in college at Humboldt State, Elam decided to transfer to Chico State for his senior season.
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11.20.09 | Men's Cross Country
NEW ORLEANS –Chico State Cross Country Coach Gary Towne will have to settle for one U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association West Region Coach of the Year honor this season. Towne, the winner of a dozen such awards in his nearly 14 years of coaching cross country, was recently named the West Region men’s coach of the Year.
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11.19.09 | Cross Country, Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Gary Towne recently moved into a bigger office. It’s a good thing, because it was getting hard to find him among all of the trophies. Towne, Chico State’s cross country coach, embarks on his quest to have the same problem in his new, larger office this Saturday when the Wildcats toe the line at the 2009 NCAA Cross Country Championships in Evansville, Ind.
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11.10.09 | Men's Cross Country
Alan Campos styled his hair wildly and colored the tips of three longer rows red before Saturday's NCAA West Regional Cross Country Championships Saturday in San Francisco. But every long-time Chico State fan knew better than to get distracted. To truly see Campos, one must look at his heart.
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11.7.09 | Men's Cross Country
SAN FRANCISCO – Golden Gate Park took on a decidedly cardinal hue Saturday. The Chico State men’s cross country team, adorned in the school colors of cardinal and white, dominated the 2009 West Region Cross Country Championships to claim their eighth straight regional title as an estimated 200-plus Wildcats fans, alumni, and family members sporting Chico State t-shirts, sweatshirts, and signs cheered them on with chants of “Cheeeecooo! Cheeeecooo!” and “Che-co! You know!”
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11.3.09 | Cross Country, Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
SAN FRANCISCO – The Chico State cross country team is always looking for a good place to run fast. Speedway Meadow, the site of Saturday’s NCAA West Region Cross Country Championships, surely fits that bill. The Chico State men will head to the heart of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in search of their eighth straight regional title and 11th straight NCAA Championship berth, while the women are gunning for their fifth regional title in the last seven years and their 10th straight NCAA Championship berth. The women’s six-kilometer race starts at 9 am, and the men’s race gets under way at 10 am.
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