With a few notable exceptions, home did not help Hawai'i's track fortunes this season. But hosting their first WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships did wonders for the Rainbow Wahine's image.

On a rainbow track with a ripped-up field and no lights, Hawai'i managed to pull off the four-day meet and leave opposing coaches wanting more. As in a return to paradise.

"I was proud of our team, but I was more proud of our organizing committee for putting on this meet," said UH coach Carmyn James, making special mention of officials coordinator Mark Zeug and assistant AD/WAC Championships coordinator Teri Chang. "Coaches want us to put in another bid and make this a permanent site."

Hawai'i's isolation make that a longshot, but the Louisiana Tech women and Boise State men — who both swept the indoor and outdoor titles this season — probably can't wait to come back.

The Techsters won yesterday with 174 points. Idaho (145) was second and Hawai'i eighth (last) with 53.5 points. The Rainbow Wahine were sixth last year with 69 points, their best finish since the program started again in 2001. This year's point total is their second highest.

BSU won the men's title with 186 points, with Utah State second at 124.

Hawai'i found a pleasant final-day surprise in the 400-meter hurdles, with freshman Thalia Amanakis sneaking in for a bronze medal and sophomore teammate Candace Rosenthal providing an even bigger shock with a sixth-place finish.

Amanakis came into the meet ranked seventh in the WAC and had a season-best 1:02.46 to take third. Rosenthal ran a career best 1:04.27 to get into the final — she was ranked 15th — and went 1:06.39 to pick up three points. The winner was Louisiana Tech's Miriam Barnes in a runaway 57.058. That was a regional qualifying time, though all WAC individual winners are in automatically.

"She makes it look easy but it's all the effort in training sessions," Amanakis said. "You have to give 110 percent, more sometimes. I'm going to start working harder — 150 percent if she's giving 110 percent."

Other personal bests for Hawai'i came from sophomore Chantelle Laan in the 5,000 meters (18:13.96) and triple jumpers Nicole Wright (36 feet, 7 inches) and Deanna Patacsil (33-3). Wright is Hawai'i's lone senior.

But, like the shutout in the shot put that followed Annett Wichmann's scintillating heptathlon victory, yesterday also had its disappointment. Hawai'i did not medal in pole vault when regional qualifier Patricia Gauthier and freshman Jessica Trujillo failed to clear 11-11.75.

Trujillo cleared 12-10 in high school. Gauthier, a WAC bronze medalist last year, went a foot higher a week ago in a UH meet that would have put her in the top 30 nationally had it been against collegiate competition.

"I know I'll realize in a few hours that it doesn't matter," said an emotional Gauthier, whose family came from Canada to watch her for the first time. "But right now I'm really sad. I was just really nervous and it affected my run-up. ... You really, really need to try and have fun while you're doing it because the stress doesn't help you perform better."

Gauthier expects less pressure at regionals in two weeks and believes what needs the most work in the interim is her confidence.

She knows people can come out of nowhere in pole vault, which she took up seriously just last year: "The tiniest technical thing can make you improve so much, to a huge height," she said. "You can flip like a quarter-second earlier and great things happen."

When Gauthier missed on her second jump, she hit her elbow and spent the time before her final jump shaking her arm trying to get the feeling back in her fingers. The junior from Ottawa insisted it did not affect her final jump, where she brushed the bar off on her way down.

"She had a lot of height, at least a foot over, maybe higher, and she kind of came down on it," said UH volunteer coach Spencer Chang. "Just a bit of bad luck. We'll get it back at regionals.

"She has all the tools to do well. I timed her speed and she should vault 15 feet," added Chang, a vaulter in college for Washington. "We've just got to get it together and work on little things."

Sophomore Meghan Weaver, the first Rainbow Wahine to qualify for regionals in three field events (shot, discus and hammer), took fourth in the discus yesterday with a throw of 15-2. Wichmann followed her heptathlon victory with a seventh in javelin yesterday. Her throw was 138 feet, 9 inches.

NOTES

Idaho sophomore Dee Olson won the women's 1,500 meters in a WAC meet record of 4:22.03. She and the next four runners all had NCAA regional qualifying times. Olson also won the 10,000 meters Friday, breaking Karen Curtis' Cooke Field record with 36:39.34. Olson ranks ninth nationally in the 1,500.

The top six finishers in Friday's hammer throw broke Novell Murray's Cooke Field record. The top seven had regional qualifying distances.

Former Rainbow Wahine assistant coach Andy McInnis returned to do the announcing at the WAC Championships. McInnis was an analyst for Canadian television at the 2004 Olympics.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.