The elite athletes were most highly concentrated in the discus competition where Dutch discus throwers Rutger Smith and Erik Cadee fought each other for this year’s number one place on the world stage. There were two discus competitions, one on Thursday, April 26 and one on Saturday, April 28.
On Thursday, Cadee threw 219’2” to win the competition and set a world record. But on Saturday, Cadee did not even make the finals as Smith hurled a massive 219’8.5” throw to overtake the number one spot away from Cadee.
A paralympic world record was also set on Saturday as U.S. Paralympian Jeremy Campbell threw 197’6”, eclipsing his American record set two weeks prior at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational of 190’7”.
In the pole vault, Kelsey Hendry of Canada and Tori Pena of Ireland battled it out, as Pena set an Irish national record of 14’10”. Hendry won the event despite failing to record a higher height than Pena, clearing the bar more consistently at the 14’10” mark.
The marks were good enough to tie the pair for ninth in the world this year.
Akos Hudi of Hungary — only 17 years old — threw 227’7” to win the hammer competition. The Junior World’s silver medalist will prove to be a serious competitor for this year’s Olympic Games in London.
For UCSD, several athletes posted great marks going into the conference finals, including senior sprints captain Jacqueline Rose, who won the 400m dash with a 53.6s, just off her personal best of 53.3s. Her brother, freshman Keith Rose, won his heat of the 100m dash with a time of 11.08 despite running into a slight headwind.
Junior Zach Nagengast threw a personal best in the discus at 161’8” to move up to sixth on the UCSD All-time list, while sophomore Lorato Anderson picked up a pro mark in her event, the 800m with a time of 2:13.98 seconds.
Freshman sprinter Sabrina Pimentel picked up a personal record as well in the 800m race, with a 2:12.8 to move her into 20th in the nation on the NCAA DII level.
Senior captain Nick Howe also had a good day in the javelin event, in his last meet at UCSD. Coming into the meet seeded seventh, Howe was trailing well behind the leaders heading into finals.
However, on his very last throw, Howe popped off a 226’8.5” throw to move into third.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘that’s the best throw [Howe]’s ever had,” head coach Tony Salerno said after the meet. “But the crosswinds just knocked the javelin down so you didn’t see how far it should have gone.”
Howe finished behind Mike Hazle, 2004 and 2008 Olympian and Pan-Am Silver Medalist, who threw 236’3”.
“The wind was really knocking everything down, the javelins would go out fine and then dip to the left,” freshman javelin competitor Nash Howe said.
Going into CCAA conference tournament next week, the Triton men are looking for their first win ever, while the women look poised to take back the title they lost after holding it for five straight seasons in 2009. The main competition for the Tritons will be against Cal State Chico for both genders. Cal State Los Angeles, who hosts the meet this year, is looking dangerous in both the throws and sprints categories.
