NORTHRIDGE, Calif. – Cal State Fullerton men's track and field won the Big West Championship for the second straight year and for the second time in program history on Saturday at CSUN.
The men's team scored 154 points to comfortably win the title over Long Beach State who was second with 136.5 points. UC Davis had 121 points in third place.
"I'm very, very proud of our group," head coach John Elders said. "Both the men and women competed really hard and put it all out there. We came together as a team really well and supported one another. I think the fruits of that is that we were able to put together this kind of performance."
The women's squad took fourth place with 98 points, just three points behind CSUN who had 101 points in third place. Long Beach State won the title with 122 points while UC Santa Barbara had 120 in second place.
"We have some great stories of perseverance with a lot of our student-athletes and I'm proud of them for staying the course and now they are champions."
With a season-best time of 40.20, the quartet of Luis Matos, Thaddeus Smith, Rasaun House and Marcel Espinoza took first place in the men's 4x100-meter relay and added 10 points to the men's score. CSF has won just three conference titles all-time in the event and each of those three have come in the last three years.
Samantha Huerta won the women's 800-meter title with a time of 2:07.63, just off her school-record mark of 2:07.36. She is the first Titan in school history to win a conference title in the event. Sandra Flores scored a point for the team as well as she took eighth with a time of 2:14.92.
Mason Guzman-Sanchez became the first Titan since Damion Jackson in 2000 to win the Big West Championship in the men's 110-meter hurdles. He clocked a time of 14.23 to narrowly defeat Joshua Turner of CSUN (14.24). In that same final, Sam Schubert was sixth at 14.53 and Charles Kelly was seventh with a time of 14.72. The wind reading was -0.8 m/s. CSF took the lead in the team score after this event and never looked back.
Smith won the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.46 (+0.7 wind) to become just the third Titan in program history to win the 100m title and the second in the last 3 years (Eli Penick, 2016). House was fourth in the race with a time of 10.65 and Matos was sixth 10.67. The Titans scored 18 points in that event.
The trio of House (21.46, -1.6 wind), Smith (21.50) and Matos (21.67) then went 2-3-4 in the men's 200-meter final to score 19 points for the Titans.
Kiana Clay and Zuri Henderson went 2-4 in the women's 400 meters with times of 54.50 and 55.39, respectively. The duo scored 13 points for the women's squad. Clay also took sixth place in the 200-meter final as well with a time 24.51 (-0.5 wind) to add three points to the women's total. Marcel Espinoza's time of 47.21 in the men's 400-meter final was good for fourth place overall and five points to the team total.
3:43.21 for the quartet of Henderson, Tyler Hardge, Morgan Love and Clay was a season-best time and good for second place in the women's 4x400-meter relay.
Alvin Sung earned a runner-up finish in the men's javelin with a toss of 193-10 (59.09m). Edwin Matthews had a mark of 188-0 (57.30m) to take fourth place. Corey Gilbert finished in third place in the men's discus with a mark of 173-4 (52.84m), adding six points to the men's tally.
Anthony Applequist earned a runner-up finish in the men's triple jump with a leap of 51-0.25 (15.55m, 0.0 wind). Laura Hamann had a season-best mark of 40-2.25 (12.25m, 0.0 wind) in the women's triple jump to take third place overall and score six points for the squad.
Diego Courbis clocked a season-best time of 52.88 to take third place in the men's 400-meter hurdles. Charles Kelly finished in seventh place with a time of 54.93. The quartet of House, Matos, Alex Perez and Espinoza clocked a time of 3:15.71 in the 4x400-meter relay to take fourth place overall.
The Titans went 3-5-7 in the women's 1,500-meter run as Huerta led the way with a time of 4:31.18. Flores was fifth at 4:34.39 and Trinity Ruelas was seventh with a mark of 4:36.54. With a time of 3:57.79, Jake Smith took sixth place in the men's 1,500-meter race. He added three points to the men's score.
The quartet of Alayah Byers, Clay, Tatiana Bell and Hardge took fourth place in the women's 4x100-meter relay with a time of 46.51.
Iesha Hamm cleared 5-9.25 (1.76m) in the women's high jump to take fourth place overall.
Danny Ramirez and Freek van de Weerd went 5-6 in the men's 5K with times of 14:48.75 and 14:49.86, respectively.
Hardge's season-best time of 61.66 in the women's 400-meter hurdles was good for seventh place overall.
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