LEXINGTON, Ky. — Bellarmine University track and field on Friday and Saturday completed the outdoor regular season after competing in the University of Kentucky’s Jim Green Invitational.

Sophomore Alex Cole placed fourth in the men’s discus (47.16) while junior Zander Hooten was fifth in the 400 hurdles (54.21) and junior Jackson Gordon was sixth in the 400 (48.12).

Freshman Will Bracher placed in the top half of the shot in 10th (15.74) while senior Nolan Hester (17th, 3:49.41), junior Chase Atkins (25th, 3:52.77) and sophomore Chase Austin (27th, 3:52.82) all finished in the upper half of the 1500.

Junior Alysia Hurtado placed in the top tier of the women’s hammer throw in 13th (48.64).

Bellarmine will compete May 15-17 in the ASUN Outdoor Championship hosted by North Florida in Jacksonville.

For more coverage of Bellarmine athletics, follow BUKnights on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Facebook.

 

 

 

East Beach may be a playground, but twin sisters Kelly and Lisa Strand had to work their way there a half-century ago.

They’d follow their older siblings by riding their bikes for six miles, packing nothing but a sack lunch and the hunger to play some beach volleyball.

“We wouldn’t even bring a towel, just an apple and a peanut butter sandwich,” recalled Kelly, who was a junior-high teen at the time. “We’d stay all day.”

Older brother Warren and sister Kathy were often already there.

They’d be holding court with such local volleyball gentry as Karch Kiraly, a future Olympic gold medalist in both the indoor and beach games.

It took countless hours of playing and pestering before the little sisters were included with all the “Queen Kathies of the Beach”: Kathy Gregory, Kathy Hanley and sister Kathy Strand.

“There was definitely a pecking order,” Lisa told Noozhawk. “We worked hard to get to play on the big girl court.

“We’d beg people to let us play. Thank God we were twins because we always had each other to play with.”

Lisa and Kelly will be paired again later this month when the Friends of East Beach Association dedicates “The Strand Court” in their honor.

The festivities will be held at Court No. 3 beginning at 10 a.m. May 31.

The organization has dedicated itself to improving the 16 permanent courts at East Beach. It renovated the first one in the name of the late Henry Bergmann in 2010.

Other courts have been named in honor of Kiraly, siblings John and Kathy Hanley, Gregory, Paul Hodgert and Jon Lee.

“It’s a pretty proud moment for us,” said Kelly, who’s now known by her married name of Kelly Van Winden. “It’s really cool because the name of the court will be The Strand Court.

“I just love that my family gets to be honored.”

Don of an Era

She and Lisa caught the volleyball bug while watching their siblings star for coach Rick Olmstead’s indoor teams at Santa Barbara High School.

Brother Warren played with Kiraly and Hanley on the Dons’ CIF-Southern Section championship boys team of 1978.

“We’d go and watch all those games as the tag-along, little sisters,” Kelly said. “It was so much fun.

“Warren and our sister, Kathy, were really good friends with Karch. They were always together, all three of those guys.”

Their father, Leon Strand, even hired Kiraly to help dig the foundation for their house.

“Our dad was the one who was always driving us to the beach or taking us to the park for tennis lessons,” Kelly said. “He taught us how to swim.

“He wanted us to be active, and all of that.”

Their father, who died last October, also took them sailing, skiing, and even backpacking in the mountain ranges of the High Sierra.

“He got us involved with a youth church group,” Lisa said. “He was trying to raise us up right and keep us out of trouble, so he kept us busy.

“We all had to get jobs pretty young … He had us pay for all our shoes and skis.”

He also facilitated their passion for volleyball.

“We’d stay up late in the front yard rallying, so our dad set up a night light,” Lisa said. “With only one volleyball, we had to wait till Warren and Kathy were done to go out and rally.”

Kelly and Lisa, like their older siblings, played for Olmstead at Santa Barbara High. They were both named to the All-CIF Southern Section Division 4A First Team during their senior season in the autumn of 1980.

“I don’t remember how far we went into the CIF playoffs every year, but I do remember all the fun we had and what great shape we were in,” Lisa said. “Our biggest rival was San Marcos.

“We’d go to Frimple’s for breakfast and do car rallies down State Street prior to those games.”

Girls volleyball at that time was in only its ninth year of sanction by the California Interscholastic Federation.

“I didn’t even recognize how lucky I was at the time, I was just riding the wave,” Kelly said. “It was like these doors opened and I just walked through them.

“I’m not saying that it didn’t come with hard work — the drive to play the game came from inside — but I had no idea about all of that.”

The twins also had no clue that volleyball could be the path to a college scholarship. Olmstead took them aside after their senior season to show them an envelope full of recruiting letters that had been addressed to them.

“He told us, ‘I want you to look through this … You can go to college to play volleyball,’” Kelly said. “We were like, ‘What are you talking about? Are you crazy?’

“We had no idea. We were just playing the game.”

The Next Level

Kelly first went to UC Santa Barbara, serving as a team captain her sophomore season, before transferring to Cal Poly.

She earned first-team all-league honors in 1984 and led the Mustangs to a 32-8 record and the championship of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association. (The league was later renamed as the Big West Conference).

Lisa, a versatile middle blocker, enjoyed even greater success at the University of Hawai‘i, earning All-America honors in both 1982 and 1983 while leading the Rainbow Wahine to back-to-back NCAA championships.

But both twins were just getting started with their lives in volleyball.

Kelly competed on the Women’s Professional Volleyball Association beach circuit for more than a decade, finishing as high as third in the Austin, Texas, event.

She also played two seasons with Major League Volleyball’s San José Golddiggers and four more on the four-person Bud Light Pro Beach Tour. She served as captain of the 1993-1994 championship team.

Kelly also coached at Napa Valley College as well as at Sonoma State College, earning three coach of the year honors.

Lisa, like her sister, competed in both Major League Volleyball and on the Bud Light circuit. She also played on the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour.

She partnered with Janice Opalinski in 1990 to win the AVP’s Salem Fresh Tokyo Tournament — the richest tour event of that year.

They also got busy starting families.

Kelly married her college sweetheart, Cal Poly basketball player Jim Van Winden. Their daughters, Adlee and Torrey, both earned AVCA All-America honors at their parents’ alma mater.

“Much as we exposed our kids to other things, they chose the sport,” Kelly said. “We sort of led them all away from it, but at the same time they all chased it … They all fell in love with it.”

Torrey now plays on the AVP Tour with cousin Katie Spieler, Kathy’s daughter.

Her sister, now known by the married name of Adlee Kass, also still plays volleyball and is expecting her first child this summer.

“She plans on playing six months pregnant in the Santa Barbara Open,” Kelly said.

Lisa and former University of Hawai‘i men’s volleyball star Pono Ma’a are the parents of four former collegiate volleyball stars: Misty (Miami), Micah (UCLA), Mehana (UCSB) and Maluhia (Kent State).

Micah Ma’a made the Men’s National Team as a setter and helped the United States win a bronze medal at last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.

“I went to Paris with Warren, Kathy and Kelly,” said Lisa, who’s served as a color analyst the last two decades for University Hawai‘i volleyball telecasts.

“We spent 12 days there and it was the most incredible trip I’ve ever been on.”

She claims that watching her children play volleyball doesn’t make her nervous even when an Olympic medal is at stake.

“I am just happy that they loved the sport,” Lisa said.

Beach Party

East Beach has always been their happy place.

Kelly and Jim even held their wedding reception at a venue that overlooked the area.

“East Beach was just such a comfortable place to be,” Kelly said. “It was like my backyard growing up.

“We’d go down there without a towel … Lie in the sand … Then we’d dive into the ocean, come back out, and lie in the sand once more to get warm.”

Lisa recalls that time as “those lazy, crazy days when all you’d do is play and then swim in the ocean.”

“It was like our yard … Our front yard and our back yard,” she said. “We lived to go down there and play.”

She also remembers how satisfying it was when they were accepted by the older players.

“If you lost, you had to wait like forever to get another chance,” Lisa explained, “so it helped with our motivation, and trained us to always win.”

Kelly, who still coaches aspiring players on the sand court that Jim built in their backyard, said “all those women at East Beach have no idea of how influential they were, and in so many ways.”

“They were so wonderful and kind, 99% of the time, to everybody in my family,” she said. “That was pretty huge.”

And it’s something she and her sister have devoted themselves to paying back, over and over again.

Durham, NH – The UMBC men’s outdoor track and field squad finished as the runner-up at the 2025 America East Championships this past weekend at New Hampshire University. The result is UMBC’s best since the 2017 season and the seventh time they have finished second since joining the league in 2004.

UMBC recorded 145 points, finished only behind UAlbany (163.50), and took the gold medal in three different events. Sophomore Alpha Balde set a new meet record in the 200-meter dash, junior losif Papa won the discus, and the Retrievers’ 4 x 800 relay also took first.

Balde, who also grabbed the silver medal in the 100-meter dash at 10:53, turned in the second-fastest time in program history (David Bobb, 20.63) with a time of 20.81 to take the 200-meter dash.

Papa’s throw of 56.65 meters (185’10”) in the discus gave him his second career gold medal at the outdoor championships.

The Retrievers struck gold in the 4 x 800 relay, with freshman Justin Banks, freshman Joseph Ensor, graduate student Mark Unger, and sophomore Tyler Edson winning by nearly two seconds.

Several Retrievers came home with silver medals over the weekend. Senior Marquis Miller grabbed second in the 400 meters (47.52), freshman John Dinnall (110 hurdles, 14.67), Ethan Hart (shot put, 16.53 meters, 54’2.75″), and senior Toren Burr (javelin, 60.77 meters, 199’4″).

UMBC’s 4 x 400 relay also finished second with a time of 40.43. The foursome comprised graduate student Jaeden Burke, Balde, Miller, and freshman Alim Raji.

Edson (800 meters, 1:48.97), Raji (200-meter dash, 21.30), and the 4 x 400 relay (3:12.36, Miller, Fred-Morgan Iheanacho, Raji, Balde) all turned in bronze medal performances. 

Unger just missed a medal with a fourth-place finish in the 1500 meters (3:54.01), as did Ensor in the 800 meters (1:49.86).

1Pacman Party-list official FB page shows Baby Giant taking front line with Milka Romero and top althletes including Gilas Pilipinas game-changer Justin Brownlee, volleyball favorite Aby Marano, and court star Scottie Thompson

MANILA, Philippines – Social media sensation Renz Joshua Baña—better known as “Baby Giant”— successfully shows 1Pacman’s “Champion Moves”  with comedic flavor, doing sporting poses such as shadow boxing and jumping over hurdles. 

Standing just 2 feet 1 inch tall but with millions of online followers, Baby Giant’s voice carries weight.

In posts that have gone viral, he urged fans to back 1PACMAN, saying, “They believe in us—whether you’re big, small, or somewhere in between. Let’s give our support to those who never gave up on athletes and dreamers like me.”

Renz, who also rose to acting fame with his invitation from no less than Coco Martin to be part of a long-standing TV series, has joined the growing wave of influencers and sports personalities who communicate 1PACMAN Party-list’s push for “Champion sa Sports, Champion sa Buhay.”

A slate of Gen Z influencers, lifestyle vloggers, and popular athletes on TikTok and Instagram from all over the Philippines show solidarity with aims of youth empowerment, sports development, and inclusive progress through 1Pacman Party-list.

“When young voices rise, we listen—and we act,” said 1Pacman first nominee Milka Romero, a former Ateneo football team captain and currently team owner of two professional women’s sports teams.

“1Pacman is here for every Filipino with heart, and hope,” she added.

DURHAM, N.H. – Graduate student Marcus Johnson was named the Men’s Most Outstanding Track Athlete and sophomore Brennan Delany was named the Men’s Rookie of the Meet, highlighting Binghamton’s performance at the America East Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which were hosted by New Hampshire at Wildcat Stadium. The two-day meet concluded on Sunday afternoon with the Bearcat women finishing fourth out of nine teams while the men were fifth.

Johnson was one of four Binghamton individual champions during the weekend. He won his second straight men’s 400 hurdle title with a program-record time of 50.59 and also anchored the men’s 4×400 relay to a first-place time of 3:10.88. In addition, Johnson was second overall in the men’s triple jump (48-0).

Johnson set the previous 400 hurdle school record of 50.82 at Penn Relays one week ago. His performance is currently ranked No. 11 in the NCAA East Region Rankings.

Also on the winning 4×400 relay team were seniors Oliver Madariaga and Joe Cardascia as well as junior Samson Joseph.

Delaney, meanwhile, took top honors in the men’s decathlon, posting a first-place score of 7,049 points. In the process, he ends the year having won both conference multi events. Delany won the heptathlon back at the America East indoor meet in February. 

The other individual winner on the men’s side was graduate student Josh Stone, who repeated as the 5,000 champion. He used his signature kick on the final lap to record a first-place time of 14:15.73. 

For his career, Stone now has four individual conference titles to his name. He has also won the past two America East indoor 5,000 crowns.

On the women’s side, senior Jennifer Mui repeated at the 3,000 steeplechase (SC) champion. Her first-place time of 10:17.89 currently ranks No. 31 in the East Region.

Binghamton also posted three other individual runner-up finishes as well as a second place relay performance. They included junior Alyssa Armitage in the women’s pole vault (12-7 ½), redshirt sophomore Brian Luciano in the men’s weight throw (210-6) and freshman Anna Gansrow in the women’s 1,500 (4:40.50). In addition, the women’s 4×400 relay was second in a time of 3:48.81 and included freshmen Sofia Toepfer, Cassidy Robleno and Savanna Edwards as well as sophomore Tatum Norris.

Earlier in the meet, Norris placed third in the pole vault (12-1 ½) while Edwards took third in the 400 hurdles (1:01.94). Another third-place finish was turned in by sophomore Putu Sutayasa in the men’s long jump (23-4).  

Also placing third was the women’s 4×800 relay team of Mui, Gansrow, sophomore Brynn Hogan and senior Zoe Rose. The Bearcats quarter clocked a time of 9:05.91.

Norris was also fourth in the 400 (55.44) and sixth in the 200 (24.78). Other fourth-place finishes were turned in by junior Sydney Leitner in the women’s 10,000 (36:56.10), Cardascia in the men’s 400 (48.07), Luciano in the men’s discus (152-10) and sophomore Dami Modpupe in the women’s 100 hurdles (14.20)

All conference honors were awarded to the top three finishers in each individual event plus all first-place relay teams. Eight Bearcat men and five women earned the distinction.

Up next on the schedule for Binghamton is the ECAC/IC4A Outdoor Championships, which are slated for May 16-18 at George Mason University

TOP MEN’S FINISHERS

Marcus Johnson, 1st, 400 Hurdles (50.49) SR

Josh Stone, 1st, 5,000 (14:15.73)

Brennan Delany, 1st, Decathlon (7,049)

4×400 Relay, 1st (3:10.88)

Joseph, Madariaga, Cardascia, Johnson

Brian Luciano, 2nd, Hammer (210-6)

Marcus Johnson, 2nd, Triple Jump (48-0)

Putu Sutayasa, 3rd, Long Jump (23-4)

Joe Cardascia, 4th, 400 (48.07)

Brian Luciano, 4th, Discus (152-10)

Jaston Ormsby, 5th, Shot Put (50-5 ¼)

Andrew Rosenblatt, 6th, 3,000 SC (9:16.31)

Oliver Jibb, 7th, 3,000 (9:17.39)

Jose Iraola-Ceely, 8th, Hammer (179-11)

Oliver Madariaga, 8th, 400 (48.54)

TOP WOMEN’S FINISHERS

Jennifer Mui, 1st, 3,000 (10:17.89)

Alyssa Armitage, 2nd, Pole Vault (12-7 ½)

Anna Gansrow, 2nd, 1,500 (4:40.50)

Tatum Norris, 3rd, Pole Vault (12-1 ½)

Savanna Edwards, 3rd, 400 Hurdles (1:01.94)

Sydney Leitner, 4th, 10,000 (36:56.10)

Tatum Norris, 4th, 400 (55.44)

Dami Modupe, 4th, 100 Hurdles (14.20)

Gianna Hoose, 5th, Hammer (172-7)

Siena Jacobson, 5th, Pole Vault (11-1 ¼)

Victoria Payne, 5th, 100 Hurdles (14.82)

Kaylen Tenemille, 5th, 100 (12.13)

Deborah Estabine, 5th, Shot Put (42-6 ¾)

Deborah Estabine, 6th, Hammer (160-5)

Tatum Norris, 6th, 200 (24.78)

Gianna Hoose, 6th, Discus (123-11)

Kirsten Lilly, 7th, Pole Vault (11-1 ¾)

Ashlyn Rattray, 7th, 200 (24.92)

Cassidy Robleno, 8th, 400 Hurdles (1:06.54)

Carlea Davis, 8th, Triple Jump (37-3 ¼)

Logan Wheeler, 8th, Heptathlon (4,182)

MEN’S TEAM SCORING

UAlbany 163.5, UMBC 145, UMass Lowell 129, Maine 119, Binghamton 84, New Hampshire 81.50, Bryant 64, Vermont 43, NJIT 29

WOMEN’S TEAM SCORING

UAlbany 187, New Hampshire 128, Bryant 127.50, Binghamton 106.50, UMBC 105, Maine 72, Vermont 55, UMass Lowell 43, NJIT 33

MEN’S ALL-CONFERENCE (8)

Josh Stone, Marcus Johnson, Brennan Delany, Brian Luciano, Putu Sutayasa, Oliver Madariaga, Samson Joseph, Joe Cardascia

WOMEN’S ALL-CONFERENCE (5)

Jennifer Mui, Alyssa Armitage, Tatum Norris, Anna Gansrow, Savanna Edwards