SAN DIEGO -- Azusa Pacific won the 2022 PacWest Men's Track & Field Championships with 313 points, which set a new meet record for highest team score after Grand Canyon held the record for nine years as the Cougars won the title for the sixth year in a row.

The PacWest Athletes of the Meet were Weston Ellis for the field events and Ayrton Ledesma on the track for Azusa Pacific after both athletes set new PacWest records this weekend. Ellis broke a nine-year old meet record in the discus with his throw of 53.74 meters, moving up to eighth in the nation for the event. Meanwhile, Ledesma set new PacWest records in the steeplechase and 1500 before finishing in second place in the 5K. He finished the steeplechase in under nine minutes and then won the 1500 alongside his teammate Ben Sumner, finishing the race in 3:50.07.

Fresno Pacific finished in second place with exactly 200 points, which is the Sunbirds best score since winning the event in 2014. Academy of Art took third place at 147 points followed by Concordia, Biola and then Dominincan, which was competing in its first PacWest Championships.

The Cougars scored in all but one event and had over 20 points in six different events. Their two most successful events came early in the day during the 1500 and the high jump. Ledesma and Sumner earned the top-2 spots in the 1500 and a total of four Cougars scored points in the event.

Then the high jump had the most exciting finish of any field event. Raymon Harper entered the meet as the PacWest record holder at 2.09 meters, having won the event each of the last two years. Academy of Art's Daniel Cortes Gonzalez matched Harper by clearing each height on the first attempt for six jumps in a row, just like Harper. When the bar was raised to a record-setting 2.10 meters, Cortes broke the record on his first attempt, while Harper had his first miss of the event. Harper then cleared on his second attempt to move the bar up to 2.13 meters. Cortes didn't clear the bar on his three attempts, and Harper had the final jump to determine the event champion. He made it most of the way over but tipped the bar just enough to knock it off, making Cortes the new record holder.

Fresno Pacific's Isaac Davis entered the meet seeded seventh in the long jump and fifth in the 100-meter dash. On Friday, he took second place in the long jump and then went on to win the 100-meter dash on Saturday. He finished in 10.37 seconds, which is the first provisional qualifier in the event for the PacWest this year, placing Davis 14th on the performance list.

Academy of Art won the 4x100 relay to start the day, finishing in 40.95 seconds, which was just shy of the team's best time this season. Shareez Hamm won two events for the Urban Knights, sweeping the hurdles. He first won the 110-meter hurdles in 14.46 seconds for his first gold medal. Then in the 400-meter hurdles, he finished in a season-best time of 52.62 seconds, moving up to 19th on the NCAA Division II performance list.

Dominic Gonzalez-Shelmire was one of the keys to Azusa Pacific being able to break the record for highest team score. He won the 400-meter dash with a meet record time of 46.45 seconds, beating the previous record by almost half a second to become the national leader in the event. Gonzalez-Shelmire then won the 200-meter dash in 21.18 seconds, which was the best time in the event since Mobolade Ajomale was in the conference. He later ran the final leg of the 4x400 relay, taking the baton in third place before winning the race on the bell lap for the Cougars.

Sumner was one of the meet's top runners in the mid-distance events and he won the 800 meters with a time of 1:51.72, which set a new PacWest Championships record. Azusa Pacific scored a total of 44 points in the two mid-distance events.

Moe Bradley was consistently one of the top finishers in the conference once again in the throwing events and he took home the gold medal in the shot put. He threw it 16.36 meters to defend his title in that event, while his teammate Jesse Franco took second place.

Going into the meet, the triple jump promised to be one of the most exciting events. Azusa Pacific's Harper and Jermel Jones were both previous champions in the event, while Academy of Art's Mathieu Tshani and Yacouba Gnacko ranked among the best in the event in all of NCAA Division II. All four jumpers finished in the top-4 spots with Gnacko taking first place with a meet record-setting jump of 15.82 meters. He now ranks third in the nation in the event, just one spot behind his teammate Tshani.

Three PacWest athletes competed in the decathlon, which was won by Toby Bartlett from Fresno Pacific. He scored 804 points in the 100-meter dash and added another 731 points in the pole vault as he finished with 5191 points.

Dominican's track & field program began this summer and the Penguins had their first student-athlete earn a spot on the podium as Wakilli Bennett took third place in the 100-meter dash. On Friday, he won his heat and then finished in 10.61 seconds to take the bronze medal in a historic achievement for the Dominican team.