SHAWNEE—Oklahoma Baptist inducts four of its legends into the Athletics hall of Fame, Fri., Sept. 16, followed by a presentation of the Hall of Fame Class at the annual Hall of Fame Football Game.
Track and field champions Verone Chambers and Jonathan Hilton, along with baseball All-American Daniel Baptista and women’s tennis All-American Paola Costa join the Hall of Fame’s previous 122 inductees to bring the OBU Hall of Fame membership to 126.
Baptista was a 2012 First team All-America and First Team All-Sooner Athletic Conference. He hit 18 home runs (third best single season) and drove in 82 runs (fourth highest single season) to go with his 84 hits in 2012. He played in the NAIA World Series in both his seasons on Bison Hill (2011, 2012) and finished his career with 32 home runs (third all-time), 129 RBIs (12th all-time) and a .379 batting average (19th all-time).
Chambers finished her career in 2012 with 18 NAIA national championships, including 11 outdoor titles—both of which are the most championships in the storied history of OBU women’s track and field. Her 25 All-America honors (13 indoor and 12 outdoor) stand as an all-time high for the Lady Bison. She highlighted three OBU National Championship teams. In her four seasons at OBU, she was on all eight 4×400 relay national championship teams. As a freshman, Chambers won the 400 hurdles and was on the indoor and outdoor 4×400 national champion relays. Her sophomore season, Chambers successfully defended those championships and added the indoor 400 and outdoor 4×100 relay. For her junior season, Chambers took both 4x400s, both 400s and the indoor 200 meters. She capped off her career with senior year titles in both 4x400s and the outdoor 400 and 4×800. Chambers still owns school records in the indoor 400, outdoor 400 and 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 relays. She earned NAIA Most Valuable Performance honors (total points scored) at the 2011 Indoor Championships.
Costa became Oklahoma Baptist’s first singles All-American as a freshman in 2009. She went on to add singles All-America recognition all four seasons of her career at OBU. Costa also earned All-America honors in doubles with Lilian Ferreira in 2012—her senior season—becoming the program’s first five-time All-American.
Hilton put OBU on the map as a multi-event power, winning back-to-back NAIA heptathlon crowns and back-to-back decathlon titles in 2008 and in 2009. He set school records in both events in 2009 with a 5519 in the heptathlon and 7233 in the decathlon. He is a six-time NAIA All-American.
