AZUSA, Calif. – Juniors Elle Alexander and Sara Wagenveld successfully defended their conference titles to pace the Azusa Pacific women's track & field team to the first-day lead of the sixth annual Pacific West Conference Championship Track & Field Meet Friday at Franson Field on the campus of Azusa Pacific.

The pair accounted for 20 of the Cougars' 71.5 day-one points as Azusa Pacific moved out to a 29-point cushion over second place Point Loma.

Alexander got the Cougars rolling from the start, taking the meet's opening event, the hammer throw, with a career-best heave of 172' 1", beating her closest opponent by nearly 20 feet.

"In focused meets like this, I could have stepped back on my final throw because I knew I had the event won," said Alexander.  "However, I was feeling good, had support from my teammates, so I just let it go. It felt pretty good coming out, but it was tough to see, so I really had no idea how far it was.  I saw my coach's reaction I knew I had something special."

Meanwhile, Wagenveld, who was coming off a career-best performance last week at the Bryan Clay Meet, continued her strong showing by winning the PacWest pole vault with a clearance of 12' 8¼", just an inch off her career-best of last week.

"I'm really pleased to put together good marks in back-to-back weeks," said Wagenveld. "It's satisfying to defend the conference title and win it two times."

She edged teammate freshman Abi Gray, who also cleared a career-best 12' 8¼", but because of more misses took second in the event.

After finishing second and third at the past two PacWest championships, senior Elise Larson collected her first-ever PacWest 10,000-meter title, blazing a 72-second final lap to run away from the field with a 37:05.14.

"I was hopeful I could win this race this year," said Larson, "but in the 10,000 you always have to be sober about your chances and smart in how you run.  I felt strong throughout the race, and am really happy to have won."

The Cougars picked up 16 points in the javelin with Kirstin Mury (third/128' 7"), Natalie Klapp (fourth/127' 2"), Leonor Brooks (sixth/125' 11") and Meagan Warwick (seventh/124' 5"), all finishing in the top seven of the event.

Warwick, the sophomore who is also competing in the two-day heptathlon, also finished fourth in the long jump with a season-best leap of 18' 1½".

The Cougar men jettisoned into the first day lead with 23 points in the long jump, taking three of the top four spots to help Azusa Pacific collect 68 first-day points, 17 ahead of second-place Concordia.

Freshmen Jermel Jones and Raymon Harper went one-two in the long jump with Jones recording a PacWest record leap of 24' 9", besting the former meet standard by nearly 3 inches    Harper registered a season-best jump of 23' 8¼", while another freshman, Kyle Cole, finished fourth with another season-best effort of 22' 10½".

Nixon Korir and Nathaniel Tamminga finished second and third in the steeplechase with times of 9:48.95 and 9:56.48, respectively.

The PacWest championships conclude Saturday with the first field event at 10 a.m. followed by the start of the track races at noon.