Aurora University Spartan women's indoor track and field head coach Ryan Chapman was honored by the Northern Athletics Conference as the 2011 NAC Women's Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year.
Under Chapman's leadership, the Spartan women captured their first Northern Athletics Conference indoor championship, finishing with 144 points in the meet.
AU won only two events (1,600-meter relay and long jump), but had 12 top-three finishes in the 16 events. The team's time of 4:15.11 in the 1,600-meter relay broke the previous mark set at the 2008 NAC Championships by Concordia Wisconsin by more than eight seconds.
The two Spartan event winners both set school records in the process as the 1,600-meter relay (4x400) and senior Cait Hartman won the long jump with her school-record leap of 5.24 meters. Hartman also finished second in the 200-meter dash with a school-record time of 27.44.
On the day, AU women broke four more school records for seven on the day. Junior Brittany Paller had two school records, finishing second in the mile run with a time of 5:26.41 and second in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:26.36. Junior Courtney Roberts collected a school record, finishing second in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.70. Her preliminary run time of 7.63 set the school record. Freshman Krystle Eskridge finished third in the 400-meter dash with a school-record time of 1:02.61.
Sophomore Ainsley Richards put on a tremendous performance and was named the NAC women's field athlete of the meet. She finished second in the long jump with a jump of 5.14 meters, second in the triple jump with a jump of 10.25 meters and fifth in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.94.
Additionally, sophomore thrower Kelsi McMahan finished second in the shot put with a throw of 11.39 meters, and sophomore runner Briana Deckard finished third in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 19:58.83. Freshman Amber Walker finished third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27:56 and set a personal record in finishing fifth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:03.22. The AU distance medley relay team finished third with a time of 13:50.57.
The Coach of the Year award is the third such honor Chapman has received in his first three seasons at the helm of the AU men's and women's cross country and track and field programs. He was previously named NAC Cross Country Coach of the Year in 2008 on the women's side and earlier this year (2010) he was named the men's Coach of the Year.
Next action for the Spartan women's indoor track and field teams comes on Friday, March 4, 2011 when they compete in the North Central College "Last Chance" NCAA qualifier. Meet time is set for 5:00 p.m. in Naperville, Ill.
