Three school records and a team victory highlighted UCSB’s day at the Cal Poly Dual meet, held on Saturday at UCSB’s Pauley Track.
The Gaucho men won their meet with 109 points to Cal Poly’s 92. The team was spurred by event victories in the throws, sprints and middle distances, with supporting points contributed by the field event athletes. The women’s team scoring saw Cal Poly come out ahead with 105.5 points to UCSB’s 94.5.
Despite the close loss, the women achieved great marks with several performances among the best in Gaucho history. Barbara Nwaba continued to impress in her sophomore season, setting two more UCSB records in today’s meet. Nwaba’s first record came in the 100m hurdles, where she won the race by three hundredths of a second in 14.21. Her time bettered the previous record of 14.49 set by Lisa Knott in 1996.
Later in the meet, Nwaba became the top all-around hurdler in Gaucho history by setting a UCSB record in the 400m hurdles. Nwaba’s time of 60.93 bettered the previous record of 61.79 set by Lindsay Wells in 2001. Nwaba is only a tenth of a second away from the Regional qualifying standard in the 400m hurdles, and now holds UCSB records in the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles and the heptathlon (5039).
A third UCSB record was set by Scott Anderson in the shot put. Anderson threw 58-8.50 (17.89m) to improve upon his previous record by six inches, and he will likely be the Conference leader heading into the Big West Championships.
The Gauchos had good results in the middle distances at today’s meet. In a race that featured the conference leader from Cal Poly, Scott Smith would come out on top in the men’s 1500m with a time of 3:46.56. The Gauchos swept the 800m races, with Sarah Vitug winning the women’s race with a seasonal best of 2:15.14, and Ryan Martin winning the men’s race at 1:53.67.
Jason Newland was a double-winner in the men’s sprints, taking the 100m dash at 10.81 and the 200m dash at 21.74. Newland also played a key role in the relays, with the Gauchos winning both the 4x100m and 4x400m. The winning relay times were 41.99 in the 4x100m and 3:13.65 in the 4x400m, which are both seasonal bests for the men.
In the opening event on the track, Katie Voigtlander cruised to a victory in the steeplechase with a time of 11:00.11. Ari Selix also ran well, improving her time to 11:12.47 with a second-place finish.
Additional event winners for the Gauchos were Christina Nowak in the women’s high jump (5-7, 1.70m), David Hoff in the men’s high jump (6-6.75, 2.00m), Alex Francis in the women’s hammer (145-3, 44.28m), Alex Umstead in the men’s hammer (178-1, 54.28m),Irene Kujore in the women’s discus (154-4, 47.08m), Michael Guerra in the men’s javelin (182-4, 55.77m), Denzel Henderson in the men’s triple jump (43-11.25, 13.39m) andAshley Ramirez in the women’s 5000m (17:44.11).
The Big West Championships begin next weekend with the multi-event competitions (decathlon and heptathlon) at UC Irvine. Those events will be held on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9. The rest of the team will have their final chances at qualifying or improving their seed times for Conference by competing at the Occidental Invitational, which will also take place on May 9.
