By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Contributor
DURHAM, N.C. “”mdash; Saturday marked the end of an era for the
UCLA men’s track and field team.
While Saturday may have been the end of one season, it was the
end of distance coach Bob Larsen’s last meet. And with senior
Jess Strutzel competing in his final collegiate 800 meter run, it
was a benchmark for them both.
“Each NCAA Championship has its own story. I’ll
remember a lot about this one, obviously. It was a lot of
fun,” Larsen said.
“Jess came here and did well, it made it much more
exciting than if you don’t have that athlete right on the
verge of making things happen and he’s such an exciting
athlete,” he added.
Strutzel was seeded seventh for the finals, after qualifying
with a preliminary time of of 1:47.13. With the projected
temperature for Friday evening in the 90s, a thick blanket of
humidity on top of that and stellar competition, this race was
deemed to be one of the highlights of the meet.
“It’s a highlight event at the meet. It’s one
of those when we knew that Jess could finish anywhere from first to
sixth and still run well,” Larsen said. “Anybody else
could have done the same. It’s who came out strong enough on
that particular day, and those top three guys really ran a
wonderful race.”
Entering the race, Strutzel was still recovering from his bout
with the flu that he battled in the Pac-10 championships in Oregon
two weeks ago.
“I wasn’t feeling too good coming into it. I just
didn’t have it today, I just didn’t have the
guts,” Strutzel said.
With Missouri’s Derrick Peterson and Brown’s Trinity
Gray in the race, both Larsen and Strutzel knew the race would be
fast-paced.
“Trinity took it just like I thought he would, and so the
pace is right where I expected it,” Strutzel said of the
first 400 meters. “I kind of got blasted a little bit and
didn’t recover very well. It was just one of those off days
for me.”
Strutzel fell into fifth in the final 400 meters in 1:46.39,
while Patrick Nduwimana of Arizona pulled out a strong 1:45.08 to
claim the title.
“His lifetime best is 1:45.81, so he would have gone
beyond his lifetime best to get into the top three,” Larsen
said of Strutzel, who won the indoor 800 in January. “He did
what he could with what he had that day. He stayed in position
where he had a shot at it with 250 meters to go, but he just
wasn’t as strong as some of those other guys.”
Strutzel said the pressure of trying to win both the indoor and
outdoor titles in one year didn’t weigh on him.
“The added pressure that I got was winning the indoors and
people looking to see if I was going to take it again,”
Strutzel said. “I usually get excited under pressure, not
really intimidated.”
Junior pole vaulter Brian McLaughlin meanwhile had an off
night.
“Unfortunately he wasn’t able to do it. When he was
warming up, he was using a smaller pole, and so when he went to the
big ones, he wasn’t ready,” pole vault coach Anthony
Curran said.
Missing his first two jumps by a small margin, and
over-estimating for his third and final jump, McLaughlin
wasn’t able to prove his ability in this NCAA Championship
competition.
“He may have been in the money if he had made the third
jump,” Curran said. “That’s how it goes in the
pole vault. He was unlucky on the third jump and you don’t go
on after that.”
“He still looked like one of the best guys out
there,” Curran added.
The Bruins ended the competition with four points, all earned by
Strutzel, who ended his collegiate career with another All-America
honor.
“I enjoyed it, but I’m sort of glad that it’s
done,” Strutzel said. “It was a period in my life.
I’m ready to start my professional career.”
Strutzel will compete at the Olympic qualifying trials next
month in hopes of earning a trip to Sydney for the 2000 Games.
Rounding out the men’s competition were hurdlers John Hall
and discus thrower Scott Moser. Both facing tough rounds of
competition, Hall finsihed third in his heat of the semifinals with
a time of 50.44 in the 400m hurdles, while Moser finished 17th with
a throw of 183-7.
“We knew going in that it would be a difficult
meet,” head coach Art Venegas said. “Our solution in
facing next season is that we’re bringing in what I feel is
the best recruiting class. It should get us back on
track.”
After a competition full of heart, the Bruins ended one era and
now prepare for the next.