Jim Lagattuta has the distinction of being the only athlete at the Arcadia Multis to post better marks than Oklahoma’s Gunnar Nixon in two events in the decathlon.
The Dos Pueblos decathlete won the shot put and discus over Nixon, who captured seven of the 10 events and scored 7,036 points to win for the second straight year at the 44th annual Arcadia Invitational.
Nixon set a national high school record with international implements (he did three extra events using a 16-pound shot put, 42-inch high hurdles and a 2.0 kilos discus; high school standards are 12-pound shot, 39-inch hurdles and 1.6 kilos discus), scoring 7,577 points to break the previous mark of 7,466 set by Curtis Beach, who is now a freshman at Duke. Nixon has committed to Arkansas.
Lagattuta, who threw the high school shot 47-1.5 and the discus 139-7, finished 12th overall with 5,068 points. His DP teammate Waiman Meinhold placed 15th with 4,810 points.
In the heptathlon, DP’s Stamatia Scarvelis (3,693 points) and Jessica Escalante (3,353)finished ninth and 14th, respectively. The winner was Abrianna Torres of San Luis Obispo with 4,826 points.
In other events involving local athletes at Arcadia on Friday, the San Marcos 1600 sprint relay team finished sixth in the seeded race with a time of 3:42.09. The team consisted of Randee Harvey, Dillon Kraus, Andrew Thayer and Phillip David. The winning time was 3:35.46 by Clovis West.
The San Marcos girls 4×800 team (Marie Brashears, Annie Thwing, Kaitlyn Kuehn, Jewel Fisher) ran 9:55.82 to finish in 14th place in the seeded race. Warren High posted the fast time of 9:30.94.
In the boys open 3200, Alfred Scott of Dos Pueblos finished 22nd in 9:41.04. Jeff Bastian of Glacier Peak, Wash., won in 9:20.97.
