The UC Riverside track and field team kicked off its season in record-breaking fashion as they competed in one of the biggest stops in the NCAA indoor track season, the UW Invitational.
Travis Smith led the charge for the Highlanders as the former All-American shattered his own previous record in the indoor shot put. The Clovis, Calif. product threw an impressive distance of 62′ 4.5″, which bettered his previous school record of 54′ 8.75″ set in January of last year. Smith earned the Highlanders’ only first-place finish in the meet, beating out national powerhouses such as Oregon, Washington, UCLA and Stanford.
UCR athletic history continued to be rewritten as Ryan Swafford broke the school mark in the men’s triple jump; Swafford, who qualified for the NCAA Championships last season, finished second in the event with a distance of 50′ 9.5″. He joined fellow jumper, Ted Hooper, in the men’s long jump with both finishing inches apart. Hooper earned the fifth best score with a leap of 22′ 11.75″ while Swafford came in seventh place clearing 22’ 1.50″. Trailing the veteran jumpers was Michael Harris, who finished in 19th place with a jump of 19′ 7.50″. Hooper’s distance of 22′ 11.75″ was only four inches shy of yet another indoor school record in the men’s long jump.
In the running events, Michael Koger sprinted to a third-place finish in the men’s 400m with a time of 40.94. Teammates Dylan Gates (49.84), Marcus Cummings (50.20), and Michael Pare (50.98) finished in 17th, 23rd and 27th place, respectively. In the preliminary rounds of the men’s 60m, Michael Hern ran a lifetime best of 6.93, which earned him a spot in the final round of the event. In the finals, Hern shaved off two-tenths of a second (6.91) to tie for seventh place while also setting a new personal best. Rounding out the races, Nic Beachan (8:45.64) and Michael Gauger (8:50.96) nabbed the eighth and 11th best times in the men’s 3,000m.
The ladies of blue and gold also performed admirably in the two-day event at the Dempsey Indoor Facility. Recent transfer Amber Wright led the Highlanders as she raced to sixth place in 400m dash. She was followed by teammates Noelle Abboud (57.51) in 10th, Asha Blades (59.49) in 24th and Jazmine Harper (1:00.01), who rounded out the quartet in 31st place. In the women’s 60m sprint, Wright sprinted a time of 7.89 finishing 28th. Alisha Brown paced four other Highlanders in the women’s 3,000m topping out with a respectable time of 10:04.79. Briana Kennedy-Feldhaus and Jazmine Lewis galloped to top-15 finishes in the women’s 60m hurdles with times of 9.00 and 9.45, respectively.
In the women’s field events, shot putters Deja Watkins and Breana Jemison earned top-20 honors throwing distances of 44′ 1.50″ and 41′ 0.50″. Watkins’s weight throw of 53′ 11.75″ also placed her in the top-10 scores of the women’s weight throw event. Jumpers Jacquelyn DuBois (triple jump) and Phoenisha Schuhmeier (long jump) finished in 12th and 29th place, in each respective event.
The Highlanders look to continue their strong start in the desert at the Mount T’s Invitational in Flagstaff, Ariz. The indoor event starts Feb. 1.
