UCSD track and field welcomed itself back home with an impressive performance at the UCSD Collegiate Invitational at the Track and Field Stadium on Saturday, ending two months of competition on the road.
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Both the women’s and men’s teams gained momentum heading into the final stretch of the season, with the women winning the team title and the men narrowly finishing second behind Cal Poly Pomona.
“”We’re very pleasantly surprised but we competed real tough,”” said head coach Tony Salerno. “”We had no idea we would be that close to Pomona [on the men’s side]. I think our depth on the women’s side really overwhelmed everybody else more than anything. It was good to see the men step it up though.””
The Triton women, coming off a second-place finish last week at Point Loma Nazarene University, scored 244 points, beating out runner-up Point Loma, who finished with 231. Division I UC Riverside finished third, followed by Cal Poly Pomona, Westmont College, and Cal State San Marcos. Cuyamaca College of El Cajon, Calif., also competed as a non-scoring team.
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Sara Allsup had herself a day with her 155′ 2″”‘ throw in the discus, fourth best in school history, improving on her qualification mark for this year’s National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Championships. Allsup also posted the fifth-best hammer throw ever at UCSD with a mark of 141’ 11″”.
Audrey Sung had one of the day’s most memorable performances with her 4:42.93 mark in the 1,500 meters, finishing just .01 seconds ahead of Westmont College’s Sarah Eyman in a come-from-behind victory.
Not to be outdone, the women’s 4×400 relay team squeezed out a victory over Cal Poly Pomona when anchor Clara Wilson closed a gap of nearly 10 meters and out-stretched the Broncos’ anchor at the finish. The Tritons came through with a 3:56.48 mark, just ahead of Pomona’s 3:56.56. Rounding out the event winners for the women was Kathy Read, who won the 3,000 meters with a time of 10:30.34.
The men, not competing at full strength because of injuries, still had one of their strongest outings of the season, finishing just two- and-a-half points behind winner Cal Poly Pomona, who finished with 267 points. Point Loma, UC Riverside, Cal State San Marcos and Westmont followed, respectively.
Mark Gomez was the standout on the men’s side, according to Salerno, with a career-best height of 16′ 3/4” in the pole vault, good enough to earn him an NCAA provisional qualification bid and a first-place finish on the day.
“”He’s one of the most deserving people I could think of — one of the most dedicated, hard-working people on the team,”” Salerno said. “”As a senior this year, his hard work is paying off.””
The other Triton wins came in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, where Julian Nahan won with the eighth-best mark ever at UCSD, and the shot put, where Rob Ewanio dominated the competition, with his throw finishing nearly six feet further than that of his closest competitor.
So far, UCSD has six athletes in seven events qualifed for the NCAA competition from May 23 to 25 in San Angelo, Texas. On the men’s side qualifiers include Gomez in the pole vault, Ewanio in the shot put and Jon Wong in the 800 meters. On the women’s side qualifiers include Sung in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters, Allsup in the discus and Megan Bergin in the hammer throw.
“”We’re really starting to pump it up,”” Salerno said. “”In the Division III days, we would qualify 13, 14, 15 athletes. We didn’t expect too many qualifiers at all for the first couple of years, but we’re really well- represented. It’s a tribute to our athletes — with the move to Division II, we asked them to step it up [and] they responded.””
The season winds down with the Tritons returning to the road to compete at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational at Claremont College on Friday, their last intercollegiate meet before the California Collegiate Athletic Association conference championships at UCSD on May 10 and May 11.
Between meets, the team will host the UCSD Open, where individuals from professional clubs as well as collegiate athletes are expected to compete in the two-day event. Salerno hopes to compete the entire team at the Open, two weeks before conference championships, an ample amount of time to rest injuries.
“”We’ll probably compete the whole crew — you can’t pass up the opportunity at home. We can’t try to protect anyone with two weeks before conference championships, so we’ll try to have everyone in there. It looks like we’ll have the top Division I teams in Southern California and we don’t want to miss an opportunity like that.””
