LA JOLLA – The Chico State men’s track team went down to southern California with one goal in mind – to win its seventh straight California Collegiate Athletic Association championship. Two days into the meet, taking place at Triton Track & Field Stadium on the UC San Diego campus, the Wildcats are on track to do just that, thanks to several outstanding performances Friday. Among the highlights: Talor Fulfer and J. Patrick Smith beefing up their provisional marks in the decathlon, and Eric Wright posting a provisional mark in the hammer throw.
Fulfer turned in a huge day Friday, winning three of five events (discus throw, 132-feet-00; pole vault, with a season best height of 14-feet-03.25; and the javelin throw, posting the second best toss in the CCAA this year at 191-feet-06) to win the decathlon with 6,802 points, topping his provisional mark of 6,618 points set last March at the Cal Multis. Smith finished second in the decathlon, tallying 6,668 points – a 182 point improvement on his Cal Multis provisional mark.
Wright excelled in his two events Friday – his toss of 183-feet-11 in the hammer throw not only earned an NCAA provisional mark, it was the second longest in the CCAA this season and the fourth best ever by a Wildcat. Wright also placed third in the shot put, with a season-best heave of 51-feet-4.50.
Brent Handa led a contingent of four Wildcats in the 10,000-meter run, winning the event with a time of 32:09.08, followed by Joey Kochlacs (second place, 32:19.57), Thomas Whitcomb (sixth, 32:39.31) and Alex Sharp (seventh, 32:54.18). All other track events Friday were preliminaries to qualify for Saturday’s CCAA Championship finals, and the Wildcats made sure they would be well represented on the meet’s final day. The men dominated the 800-meter run, sporting five of the top seven finishers; Michael Wickman won the event with a time of 1:54.28, with Clinton Hayes (1:54.47) coming in third, followed by Manny Mejia (fourth place, 1:55.47), Carlos Suarez (sixth, 1:55.01) and Kyle Robinson (seventh, 1:56.01).
Dwight Aitkens and Matt Sloggy qualified for the finals of the 400-meter dash with season-best times of 49.51 and 49.54 seconds, respectively. Isaiah Haywood (21.98 seconds) and Nick Lonnegren (22.10) logged their best times of the year with fifth and sixth place finishes in the 200-meter dash, while Chico State boasted three finals qualifiers in the 100-meter dash: Haywood (third place, 10.82 seconds), Lonnegren (fourth, 10.91) and Damaris Greer (seventh, 11.22). Jerome Kendricks posted a third place finish in the 400-meter hurdles preliminary with a time of 54.32 seconds, and Smith – fresh off his decathlon performance – finished fourth in the 110-meter hurdles, clocking in at 15.84 seconds.
COMPLETE RESULTS - CCAA Track & Field Championships
Saturday’s CCAA Championships finale begins with field events at 11:00 a.m., with running events getting underway at 1:00 p.m.
