The thunder and lightning weren’t the only things to make impressions on the NCAA track and field Western Regional championship this weekend.
Eleven of the 37 Bruins who went to Kansas are moving on to the NCAA national championship meet in a week and a half, despite the weather subjecting them to an unfavorable reorganization of events.
“Your mindset is ready to jump on a specific day,” said long jumper Austin Hazel. “Then it gets changed, and as well we also had to jump early in the morning.”
It took more than that to rock the junior, however, as Hazel secured his first national championship berth with a 24-foot, 9.25-inch leap to take 10th place.
Sophomore Jessie Maduka and redshirt senior Kylie Price also finished in the top 12 for the long jump, Price as the runner-up. The All-American took third at the national championships in 2014, but Maduka only qualified on the women’s 4×100-meter relay team. It will be her first time competing in an individual event as well.
“Everyone’s super excited, I mean it’s great that all of us are getting to go to represent the long jump squad,” Hazel said. “We’re just really pumped up that we can go to Oregon, see their track, see the fans and really get an opportunity to show out, see what we can do and just leave it all out on the field.”
Price and Maduka are also two members of the women’s 4×100 meter relay team, along with freshmen Angie Annelus and Schuyler Moore, that will go on to nationals.
Annelus qualified in her 200-meter dash as well, improving to a 23.22-second time that betters her 10th fastest time in school history.
She finished fifth in her heat in the 200-meter, which doesn’t typically bode well for advancement, but edged out 12th place by one-hundredth of a second.
“Finishing fifth in my heat, I had kind of, in a sense, given up,” Annelus said. “I went to go talk to my dad and my nephew, and then at that point is when I looked at the result … everyone around me was just looking at me like, ‘What is going on,’ because I was screaming.”
Many of UCLA’s underclassmen, like Annelus, contributed good performances that bought them tickets to nationals. Freshman sprinter and hurdler Rai Benjamin took third place in the 400-meter hurdles, Moore ran a great split in the 4×100 and redshirt freshman Dotun Ogundeji set personal bests in both the discus and the shot put.
Similar to Hazel in the long jump, Ogundeji, along with throwers redshirt senior Nicholas Scarvelis and sophomore Braheme Days, only got three attempts compared to the usual six.
“You can’t really catch the rhythm in a three-throw comp,” Ogundeji said. “We try to do it over the course of six throws, and three throws put a lot more pressure on you because you have to find that click, that throw, way faster than you’re normally used to.”
The redshirt freshman, who had the 25th farthest throw in the nation heading into the meet, almost didn’t make the cut. He threw a far below average 59-foot, 5.75-inch toss his first trial and fouled on the second.
“I’m sitting at 17th place, “ Ogundeji said. “I walked into the ring and I basically told myself before the throw, ‘I don’t want to end my season in Kansas, of all places.’”
That’s when he unleashed his 62-foot, 11.5-inch personal best blast, and it shot him all the way into fourth place. Scarvelis won the event, Days took third and Ogundeji took fourth in dramatic fashion. Once again, every single men’s shot put thrower will represent UCLA at the national championship meet.
Not only will they repeat that feat – they all qualified for the indoor championships earlier this year – but Ogundeji and Scarvelis will both throw the discus in Eugene, Oregon as well.
Senior Nick Hartle and redshirt senior Lane Werley will represent the men’s distance team at the NCAA championships in the 800-meter dash and the 10K, respectively.
Werley was the first Bruin to qualify, finishing his 10K early Friday morning, and Hartle followed suit by winning his 800 heat just two hours later.
When they graduate next year, the distance team will look for new leaders and scorers to replace those seniors, who have both been to the national championship before.
As for the other sections of UCLA’s track and field team, they’re doing a good job at ensuring a bright next generation to follow the current era of Price and Scarvelis.
“This is just a little teaser for what’s to come,” Annelus said.