CLAREMONT, Calif. — Andrew Carrasco claimed his third straight SCIAC hammer throw title and Chris Gura won the discus throw to lead the La Verne men's track and field team on the first day of SCIAC Championships on Friday at Strehle Track.
Carrasco, a 2016 All-American in the hammer throw, easily won the event with a school-record toss of 58.56 meters (192 feet, 1 inch).
Gura, who finished second place in the discus throw at the 2014 and 2016 SCIAC Championships, broke through to win the event with a toss of 44.89m (147-03). He also finished second behind Carrasco in the hammer throw with a heave of 51.69m (169-07).
Kyle Ambat and Jacob Pavlovics just missed out on the podium in the long jump and the high jump, respectively, but scored valuable points. Ambat registered a leap of 6.83m (22-05.00) to finish in the long jump and Pavlovics cleared 1.92m (6-03.50) to finish fourth. Pavlovics and Maliq Champion of Redlands both cleared the same height, but Champion made it in fewer tries to finish ahead.
All track events with the exception of the steeplechase and the 10,000m were preliminaries for finals on Saturday.
Joshua Francis uncorked his season-best time of 21.29 seconds in the 200m to grab the top seed in the final. He also qualified for the 400m with the second fastest prelim time of 48.91.
Jesus Payan took the top seed in the 400m hurdles with a personal record time of 56.06. Nathan Bradley and Joseph Azucena also qualified for the event at 58.61 and 58.79, respectvely. Bradley also qualified for the 110m hurdles with a time of 16.17.
The Leopards are back in action tomorrow, starting with field events at 2 p.m. Running events start at 3:30 p.m.
Men - Team Rankings - 6 Events Scored
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1) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 53 2) Occidental 40
3) La Verne 39 3) Pomona-Pitzer 39
5) Redlands 26 6) Cal Lutheran 13
7) Chapman 10 8) Whittier 8
9) Caltech 6
