UCSD did well amongst Division I opponents — UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside is more remarkable as the men’s side saw only one event winner.
Senior team captain Nick Howe won the javelin throw with a toss of 201’8”, besting long-time rival Michael Guerrero of UCSB by over eight feet.
The UCSD men did not win any other events at the Invitational, but they were just deeper than the other teams to capture second. UCSD had enough second and third place finishers to punch them ahead of most of their Division I rivals.
“We really competed well against our sister schools today,” said UCSD head Coach Tony Salerno. “The men’s second place team finish was a real surprise. We managed to pull it off with only one event winner out of 19 events on the men’s side. That’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment at this level.”
The men’s team was behind by three until the last event of the day, the discus throw. Junior Zachary Nagengast busted out a 159’1” throw to take third despite tough wind conditions.
Senior Dane Sandifer came in to take three points for sixth place to put the Tritons ahead of UC Irvine with a throw of 150’2.5”.
This is a remarkable feat as the Anteaters have the NCAA Champion in the 800 meters and World Championship finalist, Charles Jock, who ran far ahead of the field in long sprints. Jock ran the 1500 in 3:53.44, a good time for such an early season outing.
On the women’s side, senior sprints captain Jacqueline Rose again led the Triton squad.
In the 4 x 100 meter relay, alongside freshman Laura Schellenberg, freshman Jessica Beerman, junior Kathleen Hitchens and Rose, the Tritons came in a close third.
Rose then took second at the 200m dash, missing a first place finish by less than a tenth of a second at 24.91. This mark moves her from tenth all time to eighth all time for UCSD. In her specialized event, the 400m dash, Rose was looking for a marginal time after recording a personal record last week.
“I was just looking for a 55 (second time), like come on, just run your race and win, just make it. Then I came around the last corner and I saw the clock sitting at the finish line, and I was like, I could take this, I could get the 54.”
Rose finished first, setting a new meet record of 54.9 seconds, besting Ericka Nowell of UC Irvine by nearly two seconds.
This mark improves her NCAA provisional mark and puts her just a tenth of a second off the automatic qualifying time.
“It was a solid performance against some good Division I teams,” women’s head coach Darcy Ahner said. “The highlight today was in the women’s 400m watching Jackie Rose find another level and race with confidence.”
In the women’s 4x400m relay, sophomore Lauren Irish started well, but on the exchange to junior Lorato Anderson, the Tritons had fallen to second place.
Anderson lost another place on the way around, and handed the baton off to Rose in third trailing by 15 meters.
Rose took the baton and ran down UCSB senior Amanda Rodriguez and senior Kelly Collins of UCI in the last 100m of the lap, managing a 53.6 second split, the fastest since Christine Merill split a 53 two years ago.
Merill is now running for the Sri Lankan National Team and will be in the 2012 London Olympic games.
Roberson was caught on the back stretch by Nowell and Jessica Johnson of Santa Barbara.
Coming off the last turn, Roberson put her head down and caught back up to Nowell, leaning past her to take second place with an overall time of 3:49.02.
Roberson also won the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:03.82. The time is only .82 off of a NCAA provisional mark.
Other standouts in the meet included red-shirt junior Ryan Eckert, who threw a personal best 51’4.5” to take third in the shot put, and red-shirt senior Erin Langford, who jumped 18’2.5” to take second in long jump.
Sophomore Kellen Levy also stood out in the 3000m run, leading for much of the race and kicking with 600m left to take second at 8:31 seconds.
The men have not finished this high at the All-Cal meet since 1999, the first year the meet was held. The strong performances from both squads display the depth the Tritons have going into the heart of their season.
