Track Teams Both Lead After Day One Of SCIAC Championships
The Stags and Athenas combined to win five of the 11 finals on the first day of the SCIAC Track & Field Championships at Occidental on Saturday. Both teams are in first place after the first day of competition. The men have 96 points and the women have 45 points. The competition continues on Monday with 27 more finals.
All five champions on Saturday either repeated and/or won their third or better title. Warren Brown-Pounds (JR, Bow, WA [pictured {photo by Alan Ross}]) won his third straight pole vault title while equalling his personal best with an NCAA qualifying mark of 16-0.75. Evelyn Ross (SR, Iowa City, IA) won her third straight steeplechase (and fifth overall) title with a time of 11:20.62. Taylor Berliant (SO, Sudbury, MA) won his second straight in the shot put with a mark of 49-10.5. Jeff Clark (SR, Los Altos) won the long jump with a personal best of 22-11.25 on his final attempt. This was his third overall title. Berliant also has three career titles after also winning the hammer with a personal best and NCAA qualifying mark of 180-10.
Berliant led a dominant performance by the CMS throwers. The Stags' big men finished one-two-four-five in the hammer and then did better in the shot with a one-two-three-five performance. Noah Franz (JR, La Habra Heights) set personal bests in both events. He was second in the hammer (161-1) and fifth in the shot (46-7.5). Stephen Powell (SO, San Jose) set a personal best of 48-4 finishing second in the shot (48-4) and he also finished fourth (148-5) in the hammer. Grant Heffernan (SO, Newport Beach) finished third (48-2) in the shot and fifth (147-4) in the hammer. Andrew Bogrand (SR, Portland, OR) finished second (193-11) in the javelin as the male throwers scored 58 points on day one. The Athena throwers also placed well. Mary Moore (SR, Yamhill, OR) finished second in both the javelin and hammer. She set the CMS school record of 129-2 in the javelin and had a season best of 161-10 in the hammer. Both marks are NCAA qualifying marks. Maggie Crank (SR, Albuquerque, NM) finished third (147-9) in the hammer.
Other scorers for the women included Melia Plotkin (FR, San Diego) who tied for second (10-0) in the pole vault and Reny Colton (FR, Glendale) who finished third (16-8) in the long jump. Also scoring for the men were the steeple trio of Brian Kopczynski (SO, Coto de Caza), Florian Scheulen (JR, Encinitas) and Kramer Straube (SO, Menlo Park). They went two-three-four in the event with times of 9:27.39, 9:38.26 and 9:48.40.
The teams combined to qualify 27 individuals out of the 14 preliminaries including at least one person in each event to Saturday's finals. They were the only team to do so. Monday's field events begin at 3:15 with the track events beginning at 5:30.
Scores after day one:
Men: 1. CMS 96, 2. Redlands 31, 3. Cal Lutheran 21, t4.
Occidental, Whittier 13, 6. Pomona-Pitzer 10, t7. La Verne/Caltech
1
Women: 1. CMS 45, 2. Occidental 33.5, 3. Cal Lutheran 31, 4.
Redlands 19, 5. Whittier 10, 6. Pomona-Pitzer 9.5, 7. La Verne 6
