By Carlos Alvarez
The track and field team competed in the Beach Invitational, one of the largest track and field events on the west coast, April 20-21 at Cerritos College.
East Los Angeles College competed against a few community college athletes, but most of the competitors were from four-year universities across the U.S., and England and Mexico.
Elizabeth Bosch placed 65th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 16.88 seconds, beating San Diego State hurdler Sarah Haydock. Bosch posted a personal best.
In the 200-meter dash Shawnta Barnes finished in 36th place out of 108 runners with a time of 25.08.
Barnes beat all the competitors from community colleges and also all athletes from Wisconsin and Marquette Universities.
In the 400-meter hurdles, Bosch placed 54th with a time of 1:15.05, also a personal best. Bosch is peaking at the right time, just before the South Coast Conference finals.
The men’s team had teammates Jimmy Palencia (1:08.49) and Ricardo Navarro (1:10.13) finishing 39th and 40th respectively.
Linda Alvarado ran her fastest time of the year in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:37.17.
Alvarado finished in 10th place, beating Monique Martinez of San Diego State.
ELAC’s Marcela Collazo ran her best 800 run of the season 3:02.53.
Other Husky athletes that continued to improve on their personal times were teammates Lupe Baquero and Carlos Lopez ran their fastest times in the 1500-meter run.
Baquero finished 9th in the event with a time of 4:33.11. Lopez finished in 14th place with a time of 4:41.09.
Carlos Segovia toughed it out against mostly four-year university competition in the 3,000-meter steeplechase finishikng in last place, No. 25, in 11:27.06.
Segovia and two runners from Pima Community College in Tucson were the only community college competitors.
The event was won by John Yatsko from Northern Arizona University.
In the 5,000 run event, Gloria Hernandez finished with a time of 21:06.20. Daniel Zaragosa-Rincon finished in 19th place out of the 21 runners with a time of 16:36.62.
In the high jump event, Husky Avanti Armendarez tied for 25th place out of 33 high jumpers with a jump of 1.81 meters.
In the long jump event Husky Darren Bragg placed 35th place out of 61 jumpers with a jump of 6.80.
Armendarez also competed in the long jump event finishing 48th with a jump of 6.37.
Giovani Leon who competed in the javelin event finished in last place with a throw that traveled 44.89 meters.
Leon almost beat Cody Gibson from the University of Alaska, Anchorage whose throw was .22 of a meter less than Leon.
In the triple jump event, Bragg finished in 26th place out of 33 competitors. Bragg’s recorded leap was 13.13 meters, his best leap of the year. Armendarez finished in 28th place with 11.24 meters.
In the discus event Husky Raquel Acosta finished in third out of eleveth place.
She had a throw of 32.59 meters, her best this season.
Lizett Herrera finished in sixth place with a throw of 30.14 meters.
Jessica Herrera (21.22 meters) and Doris Garcia (20.82 meters) finished in 10th and 11th place, respectively.
Garcia got her best throw of all season.
In the men’s discus event Leon placed 53 out of 59 throwers with a distance of 30.01 meters.
The Huskies continue their push for State Championship as they compete in the SCC Prelims in Compton on April 24th and SCC Finals this Friday, April 27th.