Harold Young, a leading qualifier in the shot put, smashed his own EC record Saturday at the Southern California Preliminaries, adding another chapter to his ongoing success story.
Young’s performances qualified him for the Southern California Championships in both the shot put and discus.
Young won the shot put with a toss of 56-8 1/2. He hurled 186-9 in the discus and set a new record, placing him in second place.
The men’s track and field team performed respectively on a hot day at the Southern California Preliminaries.
Some in the field events will advance to the Southern California Championships at Bakersfield Saturday.
However, the freshmen-based running group will leave this season with no qualifiers stepping forward, hoping to do better next year.
“At the conference level, individuals in the running events competed well throughout the season,” coach Dean Lofgren said. “We have a very good representation in the field events. We expect them to do well at the championships.”
At the meet, the wind conditions were perfect for Young.
“Everything was just right,” assistant coach Rod Mansfield said. “I think Bakersfield will be the same way.”
Mansfield is predicting a first-place finish for Young in the shot put and a second-place finish in the discus at next week’s meet.
The leader in the discus throw entering the competition will be Robert Slowik of Moorpark, who is about 10 feet ahead of Young.
“He is a good thrower, but I like competition,” Young said. “I’m looking forward to beating him the next time.”
Andre Rochelle, the third best javelin thrower at Souther California, barely qualified for the Southern California Championships.
Rochelle threw 155-2 in the javelin and placed 12th. He said he believes he is capable of throwing the javelin 20 feet farther.
“I’m not happy with my javelin performance,” Rochelle said. “But I’ll get a chance to do better.”
As opposed to his javelin throw, Rochelle performed better in the discus and qualified easily.
Rochelle snatched sixth place with a throw of 140-1.
“I feel pretty good about the discus performance because I didn’t expect to do so well,” Rochelle said.
“I’m excited about the Southern California Championships,” he said, “because it’s my first time being there.”
Darryl Guerin placed 11th in the shot put, with a throw of 44-9 and qualified along with Young.
“I threw far enough to be qualified,” Guerin said. “It gives me another week to practice so I can really get it up there.”
Another qualifier in the field was Amir Fisher. Fisher cleared 6-4 in the high jump and qualified.
“He’s got a really good chance to make it to the state meet,” assistant coach Kevin Hughley said.
“He could win the Southern California title, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Consistent jumper Thomas Norcio finished 14th in the pole vault at 13-6, ending his season.
In the running events, while there were no qualifiers, the Warriors made an honorable last effort.
The 1,600-meter relay team finished in 15th with a time of 3:25.73, taking off five seconds from the time they had in the last meet.
“Emmit Karlay was out of shape because of an injury,” Hughley said. “That’s one of the keys that we are not qualifying. Besides him, losing Kyle Montgomery was huge loss this year.”
In the 400-meter hurdles, Justin Kalama ran 59.78 and finished 22nd. Kalama made a mistake that affected his results.
“He tripped on the fourth hurdle and almost fell,” Hugely said.
“He was looking really good up until that point. But by the time he was back into the race, everybody had passed by already.”
In the 800-meter, Rickey Sallee took 13th with a time of 2:00.10.
Emiliano Nash finished 18th with 2:02.64 also in the 800-meter.
For the track team, the day didn’t do go quite as well. The team finished with a mediocre meet.
In the 10,000 meter final, Corey Hirokawa ran 34:38.50 respectively and finished 15th.
