May 26, 2007
Eugene, Oregon - Cal State Fullerton's men's 4x100 relay team placed fifth early Saturday afternoon at the NCAA Western Regional Meet at the University of Oregon and came up two spots shy of qualifying for the national championships beginning June 6 in Sacramento.
The team of Lawrence Trice, Marques Barosso, Chris Epstein and Maurice Chappell ran 40.59 to trail USC, Arizona, Oregon and Sacramento State.
"The relay team did a great job, especially considering that Jon Pratter couldn't run," said Head Coach John Elders. "They ran a season's best in the prelims and if we had had better baton passes on the first two exchanges, we would have been right there."
Epstein just missed an automatic qualifier in the men's 400 meters, finishing sixth, .07 behind the fifth place runner and qualifier, DaSheek Akwenye of Utah State.
Barosso also ran in the finals of the 100 meters and placed eighth in a time of 10.58. Other performances Saturday: Laron Brown was tied for eighth and Jonathan Golden was tenth in the high jump, both at 6-feet, 11 inches but Golden had one more miss; Jameena Hunt was 21st in the women's discus at 129 feet, 10 inches; Dalya Taman was 21st in the women's pole vault at 12 feet and the women's 4x400 relayi team, running without the injured Kandace Wilson, ran 3:43.46 to finish eighth and fail to qualify for nationals.
"It looks like Golden will get an at-large berth," said Elders. "He's ranked No. 11 nationally with a best jump of 7 feet, 2 1/2 inches. And Jordan Horn is a solid choice in the 10,000 meters with a best of 29:02.57. And Epstein could make it, depending on what happens to some of the other qualifiers and other events. We are going to declare him just in case."
USC won the men's team competition with 83 points. Host Oregon was second with 75 points and the Titans were 20th with 8.5 points. On the women's side, Arizona State was the winner with 94 points followed by USC at 74. Fullerton scored one point in the relay and placed 28th..