Senior Amos Maru went out a champion this past Saturday. In the culmination of the 2011 cross country season and his Academy of Art career, Maru became a three-time individual title winner at the 2011 Pacific West Conference Cross Country Championships in Goodyear, Arizona. The Nandi Hills, Kenya native completed the 8k course in 24:04 which serves as his lifetime best and led him to 2011 PacWest Men's Cross Country Runner of the Year honors. The time was 40 seconds lower than his previous best achieved at the 2010 Stanford Invite and Maru was also over 20 seconds better than the next finisher.
"Amos defended his title and that's huge to go out a three-time champion," head coach Charles Ryan said. "What he has done for our program really can't be measured. He, along with Daveson and Simon, have been the faces of this program and it will be sad to see them go. But Amos won the race very handily and he looked good doing it.”