By David Garcia
Bruin Sports staff
dgarcia@media.ucla.edu
A favorite in the 60-meter hurdles at the NCAA Indoor Championships three weeks ago, Kevin Craddock ended up missing the race due to a serious illness. On Saturday, he looked to make up for lost time.
Over the weekend, Craddock competed in his first race since falling ill just before the NCAA Indoor Championships held March 9 and 10. The sophomore looked to be close to full health on Saturday as he captured the 110-meter hurdles title at the Cal/Nevada Championships in Fresno.
“Kevin was very sick and they ran a lot of tests on him,” sprints coach Tony Veney said. “They thought he might have meningitis and they even did a spinal tap. That really put him behind the ball physically and he had to take two weeks off.”
Craddock was not even scheduled to compete this weekend, but after looking good in warm-ups, Veney decided to put his premier high hurdler back into the fold.
Craddock won the finals in 14.08 seconds with freshman teammate Darius Reed close on his heels at 14.09, a lifetime best for Reed.
“We had (Craddock) doing 400 meters training and we hadn’t planned on having him race,” Veney said. “But he got out there and he felt pretty good. The 400 meters training was working well.”
Also on the track for the Bruins, All-American hurdler Brandon Johnson made his season debut, but not in the 400-meter hurdles, which is his signature event. Instead, Johnson competed in the 800 meters.
“The intensity and effort is very high week in and week out,” Veney said of the 400-meter hurdles. “We want to keep Brandon’s best races for the end.”
Johnson missed the majority of last season with a hamstring injury, but on Saturday, he put to rest any thoughts that he would not be back at full strength this year. The senior won the 800 meters title in 1:50.85 and will open up in the 400-meter hurdles in two weeks.
STANFORD INVITATIONAL: While the majority of the team was in Fresno, a handful of distance runners headed up to Palo Alto to compete in the prestigious Stanford Invitational. Junior Austin Ramos had a big weekend, finishing with a lifetime best time of 13:51.73 in the 5000 meters to place ninth overall among collegiate runners.
“I’ve known that he is in good shape and can run a fast time,” distance coach Eric Peterson said. “We wanted to see how he will compete in a race that has a very honest pace right from the beginning. The pace turned out to be not that fast and he was able to stay with the front pack and run a very good race.”
In the 3000-meter steeplechase, senior Henry Hagenbuch had a huge personal best of 8:58.64, one of the top marks in the nation, in just his second steeplechase race ever.
The time was good enough for fourth overall in his section.
“Henry is very athletic; he plays a lot of sports,” Peterson said. “We could tell right away that his hurdling technique was very good. … He is going to be a force (in the steeplechase.)”
THROWERS POST BIG MARKS: Senior Greg Garza led the throwers over the weekend in Fresno, winning the discus with a commanding throw of 197 feet, 1 inch ““ one of the top marks in the nation and a lifetime best. Behind Garza, freshman Darius Savage finished in second place with his own lifetime best of 181-11.
Junior John Caulfield won the shot put on Saturday, but he had his best throw in the preliminaries on Friday as he tossed a season best of 59-7 1/2.
Sophomore Boldizsar Kocsor won the hammer throw with a season-best 211-5.