Men’s track and field debuts top athletes at invitational

After UCLA men’s track and field soared to 12th in the national rankings last week, this weekend was meant to be a breather.

The team didn’t roll out its A 4×100 relay team, sophomore sprinter Rai Benjamin, freshman jumper Isaiah Holmes in the high jump – for which he’s ranked in the top 10 nationally – or a good majority of its distance team, all of which were critical in the rankings explosion.

However, the divisions that hadn’t yet contributed started to uncork their potential at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational.

Freshmen javelin throwers Marian Spannowsky and Simon Litzell scored their first official throws Saturday at Drake Stadium. The two have personal bests that would land them in the top five nationally right now, though what was lined up to be a productive opening weekend was sidetracked by unfavorable runway conditions.

The last few meters of the track were visibly worn, so much so that director Mike Maynard was sweeping the runway for the two throwers himself.

“It got that dusty after last weekend when there were a lot of throwers here,” Litzell said. “Coach told us that every other year they have to replace the run up because it gets torn up because of the sun and the rain.”

He said he slipped about two feet when he reached the planting area, something Spannowsky, who didn’t have a far enough throw after three rounds to continue competing, also experienced.

Litzell still managed to crack the top 50 nationally with a throw of 65.13 meters, and took second place behind Utah State’s Sindri Gudmundsson, whose 73.06 mark ranks eighth in the country.

Redshirt sophomore thrower Dotun Ogundeji also opened up his outdoor season in the men’s shot put, which he last competed in at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

He and freshman thrower Nate Esparza competed in the same flights as 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joe Kovacs and 2016 Olympian Darrell Hill, who won the event with a personal best throw of 21.91 meters – the third-farthest throw in the world this year.

Ogundeji’s farthest throw of the day was 18.31 meters, nearly one and a half meters short of his indoor best this year, while Esparza threw a collegiate-best 18.23 meters, as both moved into the top 30.

The rest of the men’s team didn’t make any headway in new events, but some athletes significantly improved their standings in their regular ones.

Holmes improved his outdoor long jump distance by a quarter-meter to move within the top 30 in the event, and senior Cody Crampton finished an inch short of seven feet in the high jump to move within the top 35, though the biggest movements came on the track.

Junior sprinter Leon Powell clocked a personal best 10.36 seconds in the 100-meter dash to also move within the top 35, and distance runners sophomore Arturo Sotomayor and redshirt sophomore Austin O’Neil finished first and second in the 1500 meters.

Their times of 3 minutes, 42.60 seconds and 3:42.86, respectively, put them as the fifth- and sixth-fastest 1500 runners in the country in an event that UCLA now has three runners in the top 25.

“The pacer did a lot of work, I thanked them a lot after the race,” Sotomayor said. “He took it through 1100 meters, something like that … and (I) really only had to do 500 meters of work once he dropped off.”

Sotomayor ran the mile, which is 1600 meters as opposed to 1500, last week at the Bob Larsen Distance Carnival, and said his confidence in the last few hundred meters was the major difference in the end results.

The entire distance team’s performance lately has been nothing but a confidence ride – UCLA has top times in the country in nearly every event longer than 800 meters.

“What (assistant coach Forest Braden) told us in practice the other day was that it’s the culture that we have during practice and during the meets, when one event group does well – let’s just say to start it off the 1500 – everyone just feeds off that energy,” Sotomayor said. “It’s just a roll from there.”

Sotomayor’s and O’Neil’s times came after the first distance race of the day for UCLA, in which freshman Cassandra Durgy took second place in her first-ever collegiate 1500 with a time of 4:28.37.

“I just tried to pace it how I had the weekend previous to this one, because I was pacing it last weekend, and try to go in that same rhythm the best I could,” Durgy said. “But for the first 15, I think it went really well and progressing from here, hopefully deciding between whether I’m going to stick with the 1500 or stick with the 800.”