KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Sophomore
Kyle Erickson, seen here in an earlier meet this
season, was on the winning 4×400-meter relay team.
By Glen Worthington
Daily Bruin Contributor
The No. 18 UCLA men’s track and field team worked hard to
place highly in competitive fields which included both collegiate
and professional athletes, though for the most part came up short
of previous marks this season.
Three Bruin throwers competed in the discus at the Antelope
Valley Throwers Meet Thursday. The field was less competitive than
expected, due in part to the threat of inclement weather,
men’s Head Coach Art Venegas said.
Though wind conditions were not favorable, junior Scott Moser
still managed to keep up his consistently strong showings with a
201-foot, 6-inch toss. Moser won the collegiate division and placed
second overall behind Nike’s Jason Tunks (212-1). Tunks, of
Canada, placed sixth in the 2000 Olympics.
Redshirt freshman Dan Ames placed second in the collegiate,
third in the invitational, with a 192-5 throw. Also competing for
UCLA was sophomore Scott Wiegand, who threw a personal best 172-9,
placing third in the collegiate. Moser and Ames’ distances
were each more than four feet off from their nationally ranked
marks. Even these marks, however, are up with the best in the
nation.
Discus results at the Mt. SAC relays were not as good, but Ames
had an outdoor lifetime best in the shot put at 60-10.
The rest of the Bruin squad had similar results at the Mt. SAC
meet which was held Friday through Sunday. Some performances were
breakthroughs but otherwise, the marks were slightly off
target.
Distance events took place Friday night in somewhat adverse
conditions. Athletes had to cope with cold, wind and rain during
the competition, which may have slowed down the team, but
men’s distance coach Eric Peterson played down that
angle.
“The rain would come and go,” he said. “But
the temperature was a bit on the cool side. Yet if you look at the
results there were a lot of good marks. I am reluctant to entertain
the idea that that had much of a negative impact on the way things
went.”
Seniors Paul Muite and Mason Moore were well off their bests.
Muite ran a tenth place 3:57.31 in the 1500-meter race, eight
seconds off his season best, while Moore’s fourth-place time
of 9:16.10 was 10 seconds from his season best.
In the invitational 10,000m, junior Bryan Green came in 18th in
a strong field with a time of 29:32.28, seven seconds off his
season and personal best.
“I was too focused on my own splits and time,” said
Green. “I did not pay attention to the dynamics of the race
in front of me. I became separated from the group that I should
have been running with and didn’t catch up.”
Green said that the one good sign about his race was that he ran
close to his personal best and it felt like a poor race. He feels
he should be able to make big improvements in the coming weeks.
On a more positive note, freshmen jumpers Juaune Armon and
Oliver Jackson placed first and second in their flight of the long
jump at 23-11 and 23-10 respectively, a personal best for
Jackson.
Other freshmen excelled as well. In the 400m race, Denye Versher
and Rodney Diggs both put up strong times in extremely cold
conditions. Versher ran a personal best for the second week in a
row (47.29) placing first in his heat. Diggs’ 47.91 placed
third in the same heat.
The 4x400m relay team of Versher, junior Michael Lipscomb,
sophomore Kyle Erickson and Diggs won the event with a season best
time of 3:09.62, their first time under 3:10.
For Peterson, the highlight of the weekend was the 4x800m relay.
The team of freshmen Nick Thornton, Jon Rankin, junior Martin Brix
and sophomore Phil Young won the event with a 7:30.11, the first
time UCLA has won that event at Mt. SAC since 1972. Peterson was
especially impressed with Rankin’s, who usually runs 1500m or
more, split time of 1:50.9.
“That’s significant,” he said.
“Jon’s lifetime best in the 800m coming into the season
was 1:57.”
“As Jon prepares for the 1500m at the Cal-Nevada meet, USC
and the Pac-10 championships, this is an important indicator of the
next level of improvement that he could experience,” he
continued.
The results for the weekend overall were strong but not as
strong as they could have been. The coaches feel that the team is
on track to start peaking at USC and carry that momentum into the
Pac-10s.