CHARLOTTE, N.C. - On the final day of the 2010 season, the UC San Diego track and field team didn't hold back any effort. For sophomore Nick Howe on Saturday, all the hard work put in throughout the year paid off in the highest dividend of all - a national title. His achievement marked the first-ever individual title on the men's side for the Tritons at the Division II level.

Howe won the javelin event with a school record throw of 225', one of many strong Saturday performances to cap off a stellar showing by the Triton contingent at the NCAA Division II Championships held on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University.

"It's been remarkable to see his improvement through these first two years," UCSD men's head coach Tony Salerno said. "We've made some investments in perfecting his technique and quite frankly, I didn't expect for him to get these kind of results that fast. It's been impressive that he's developed this quickly and he certainly has a bright future, considering he's only a sophomore."

Saturday's throw for Howe topped the second-place finisher's mark by more than five feet. His previous best, also the previous school record, went for 220'6" at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invite in April. The Aptos, Calif., native ended up just three feet short of landing a Top-20 all-time mark at the D-II level.

Because part of Friday's action was postponed due to lightning, a portion of the schedule was pushed to Saturday and completed as timed finals. Overall for the championships, Angelo State won the women's national title while St. Augustine's captured the men's crown.

UCSD junior Kelly Fogarty put together a busy and successful Saturday showing as she became the first Tritons' female sprinter to become an All-American in both the 100 and 200 events.

In the 100, Fogarty placed sixth with a time of 11.99. A day after setting a school record in the 200-meter prelim dash at 23.96, she took seventh in Saturday's final after crossing the line in 24.03. Semoy Hackett, a member of the second-place Lincoln's women's squad and also a competitor for the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic team, took first in both events with respective marks of 11.33 and 22.75.

The field in the 400-meter hurdles also proved to be tough Saturday, but Tritons' senior Christine Merrill did more than hold her own. In fact, she finished third with a school-record time of 58.04, which surpassed the 58.59 that earned her a national title at the 2009 NCAA Championships in San Angelo, Texas. The first and second-place marks on Saturday, set by Lincoln's Michelle Cumberbatch (56.85) and Angelo State's Aisha Adams (56.93), topped the previous meet record for that event (57.18). Merrill also finished 12th in the 100-meter hurdles Saturday, when she crossed the line in 14.18.

Merrill and Fogarty combined with Stephanie LeFever and Jacqueline Rose to earn All-American status by finishing eighth in the 4x400 relay event with a time of 3:44.82, third-best in program history.

Stephanie's sister, Donna, also achieved All-American results with a sixth-place finish in the pole vault by posting a mark of 12'2.75". Earlier this month, Donna took second at the California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships in the same event.

Senior Linda Rainwater turned in a gritty performance Saturday, battling through a back injury to take 11th in the high jump final with a 5'5.75" mark. Despite being cleared by doctors just a day before the team headed East, Rainwater continued to clear the bar in a pre-meet practice Wednesday and let it fly Saturday in the final.

"That was one of the most impressive performances I've seen from an athlete," Salerno said. "To anticipate the pain that will arrive as soon as you clear the bar and fall, but to still go out there and perform your best, it was amazing to watch."

Also on Saturday for the Tritons, Theresa Richards placed ninth in the javelin finals with a throw of 140'4", Daniel Anderson finished 14th in the 800-meter run after crossing the line in 1:51.97 and Casey Ryan posted a ninth-place finish in the high jump at 6'9.50".

As a whole for the three-day championships, UCSD finished 16th on the women's side and 27th on the men's side.