Saba Khvichava brought home four gold medals from Sunday's NSAA Indoor Track and Field Championships held on the 300-meter oval at South Dakota State University. For his efforts, Khvichava was awarded the NSAA Indoor Track Athlete-of-the-Meet. He led the Bruins to their best team finish in program history, a fifth-place finish scoring 57 points. (Top eight places score 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1).
Khvichava's day began with the 4 x 800-meter relay, where the Bruins hoped to challenge perennial event champion Dakota State. A strong opening leg by Richard Marcoux gave the Bruins a lead, and that lead increased with a personal best-time carry by Aaron Newton. Edrei Murillo also dipped under his season best on the third leg, and Khvichava provided a comfortable anchor leg for the victory. Bellevue's time of 8:09.29 was a school record.
The mile was next, with Khvichava and Marcoux coming in as the top seeds. The tactical race created a logjam of runners at the halfway mark before the two Bruins proceeded to break the field apart and finish first and second in 4:30.49 and 4:31.35, respectively. The Bruins were not done scoring as Collin Kotz charged to a fifth-place finish in 4:37.90. Edrei Murillo and Kaleb Wooten finished in tenth and eleventh, running 4:51.77 and 4:56.13.
The 800-meter run was Khvichava's third trip to the starting line, and again he employed a "sit and kick" strategy, passing a Dakota State runner with 200 meters to go and crossing first in 2:00.58. Aaron Newton came back for his second race of the day to finish in 2:09.23, good for twelfth place.
The 3,000-meter event capped the Bruin events on the day with Khvichava, Kotz, and Marcoux competing. Once again, Khvichava trailed a runner until 200 meters remained and then changed gears opening a large gap at the finish. His finish time was 9:01.25. Kotz added a fourth-place finish in 9:21.78, capping a fine double, while Marcoux's third race of the day resulted in a tenth-place finish in 9:37.31.
The Bruin women had two entrants in the mile run. Hannah Perkins scored the lone point of the day for the women with her eighth-place finish in 6:06.94, and Claire Kimutai was twelfth in 6:58.61.
Head Coach Craig Christians: "We ask a lot of our small band of athletes, and they delivered fantastic results today. Starting off with the relay win was a moment I've been waiting for since we started the program. That was extremely satisfying. We ask the most out of Saba, and his performance was exceptional. We had never had an indoor all-conference award for the men prior to today, and now we have five, three for Khvichava, Marcoux in the mile, and the relay. And then to outscore two full squads and finish fifth was amazing. I couldn't ask for more out of this team."
Aaron Newton was named as the indoor track "Champion of Character" for the Bruins.
While that caps the indoor season for most of the team, Khvichava and Marcoux will return to Brookings on Friday, March 3, for the NAIA Indoor National Championships and compete in the preliminary round of the mile run at 12:20 PM. Should either advance to the final, that race is Saturday, March 4, at 12:35 p.m.
