Megan McNally leads the field in the women's 3000 event
Wow! What an amazing day!! Moorpark College hosted 6 colleges today in the first home meet in two years. Today also marked the first official home meet for head men’s coach Eleazar Hernandez who has served as an assistant coach for Moorpark for the previous 11 years. Although the men’s team is being let go after this season due to “budgetary issues” the small team pulled together today and won – finishing 20 points ahead of the 2nd place team.
Visiting colleges included the powerhouse team of West Los Angeles who won conference in 2011 for both the men and women. Last year’s win for West L.A. was its first ever title for the men’s program, breaking a 10-year winning streak for Moorpark College who won from 2001-2010. The Western State Conference is known as the largest conference in the state for track and field with 12 teams (13 before Oxnard lost their program).
All of the Moorpark Raiders performed like Super Stars today on their home field. The first highlight of the day came from the men’s 4x100m relay. The team has struggled all season with their handoffs but today everything came together. The team of Nami Taghavi, Trevor Edwards, Antonio “Danny” Lopez, and Shawn Tedjasaputra ran in a time of 43.47 to place 2nd.
The men’s field team continued a strong tradition today. Rodger Mantor won the pole vault with a jump of 4.40 m (14′ 5 1/4″). Austin “Dewey” Benson continues to lead the conference for the hammer (138′ 8.5″) and discus (132′ 5″). He also placed 2nd in the shot put (48′ 2.5″). Patrick Smith won the shot put (49′ 8.5″) and took 2nd in the discus (124’8″). Freshman, Steven Deadwylier finished 4th in the hammer (112′ 2.5″), 4th in the shot put (39′ 5.25″) and 5th in the discus (116′ 6″). A big surprise for the Raiders was a 3rd place 147′ 1″ throw in the javelin by sophomore, Nick Althaus.
Additional highlights for the men’s team include a 2nd place finish for Shawn Tedjasaputra in the 400m in a time of 50.00 and a 5th place finish for Nami Taghavi (50.98). Tyler Fields started his day by running the 110m Hurdles in 17.15 to place 3rd. Fields also placed 3rd in the 400m Hurdles (59.83), 4th in the high jump (5′ 11″), 6th in the triple jump (39′ 5″) and 7th in the long jump (19′ 5″). Julio Tellez finished 11th in both the 1500m (4:20) and 3000m (9:29).
The highlight of the day for the women was Freshman Megan McNally. The Raiders went up against conference powerhouse Glendale in the distances. McNally ran exceptional today and won both the 1500m (4:57) and 3000m (10:59). Also in the distances, Emily Kelly ran 2:21 to place 2nd in the 800m while teammates Nicole Rietveld placed 5th (2:23) and Clarissa Wentworth finished 7th (2:27). Alexis Pichardo is off to a great start this season with a time of 5:06 in the 1500m to place 6th. Ashley Hamilton finished 9th in the 3000m (11:31) and 10th in the 1500m (5:27).
Sprinter Sara McDonald finished 2nd in the 100m (12.99) and 400m (58.92). McDonald also placed 3rd in the 200m (25.86) and ran the anchor leg for both the 4x100m and 4x400m. Teammates Bailey Schentrup and Cassie Mathison finished 4th (1:00.8) and 7th (1:06.2) in the 400m respectively. Cassie also placed 4th in the 400m Hurdles (1:15) while teammate Eliza Nielsen finished 5th in the 100m Hurdles (18.12).
Leading the field events for the women today was high jumper Kayla Lindquist (pictured above) who cleared 5′ 3.75″ to win the high jump event. Bailey Schentrup placed 3rd in both the long jump (16′ 11.5″) and triple jump (34′ 1.5″).
The Raiders are off to a great start this season. Next week the team will compete in the Northridge Invitational on Friday (Hammer) and Saturday (everything else). Please join us on Friday, April 27th when we host the WSC Championships.
TEAM SCORES:
MEN WOMEN
Moorpark 118 West L.A. 149
Glendale 98 Glendale 102
Santa Monica 95 Moorpark 95
West Los Angeles 94.5 L.A. Valley 82
Citrus 68 Citrus 74
L.A. Valley 50.5 Santa Monica 12