The UC Santa Barbara men and women’s track and field teams found themselves in the top ten this weekend at the Cal Nevada Championships. The women’s squad earned the ninth spot in overall points and the men’s ranked fourth in its efforts.
This tournament was the first of this season that the men’s team did not finish in first place. Both teams have had sensational starts, including in a meet down in Riverside, in which both teams took the top spot.
With junior Shyan Vaziri making an appearance at the Stanford Classic this weekend, the Gauchos would look to some newer talent when it came to the 1500m race. It was a success as four runners landed their times in the top ten, including a second place time by freshman Andrew Verdin who came in at 3:56.16. Vaziri, who was invited to Stanford due to his new recent time, landed in first place in his heat.
Another young athlete would head the 10,000m race for the Gauchos as well. Freshman Jackson Bright made his Santa Barbara debut by notching a first place spot in the final with a time of 31:03.77. His late efforts led him to his spot on top of the podium in this contest.
Santa Barbara had some other notable track performances, including the men’s 4 x 400m relay where the team took third place, just two seconds behind the leader. Junior Bryce Rausa would then make his name known in the 3000m steeplechase by coming in second place.
On the field side of things, junior Albert Hughes took second place in the hammer throw by setting his PR of 58.28m.
The women’s team did the bulk of their work in the track events. Sophomore Maxine Goyette placed second in the 3000m steeplechase with a time of 10:47.93, while junior Bailey Miller took sixth in the 5000m with a time of 18:00.22. Sophomore Tori Tsolis would give the Gauchos another point boost with her 1500m time of 4:39.41, which ranked fifth in the meet.
Sophomore Jessica Embe turned in the field performance of the day when she passed the 1.73m high jump. This was the highest height that any athlete had recorded in the competition and landed her third overall as she tied two others at this height.
The Gauchos will look to keep their momentum this Friday when they head down to Irvine for the Big West Challenge Cup.
This article is an online exclusive and did not appear in the print edition of The Daily Nexus.
Daily Nexus file photo.