The Broncos set three new National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) provisional-qualifying marks, all on the women’s side this past weekend at the Bryan Clay Invitational hosted by Azusa Pacific University.
To go along with the new marks, CPP also improved on previous provisional marks that have been set earlier in the season.
With just two weeks away from California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) track and field championships, the Broncos looked to make improvements on previous times as they faced stiff competition from a combination of Divisions I and II schools.
“Expectations are always really high; this is getting really close to championship season for us with the CCAA championship in two weeks and we are looking for people to get season best and personal best, get ourselves ready to do big things in a couple of weeks,” coach Chris Bradford said.
Senior Casey Monoszlay continued her dominant season as she ran a personal best 16 minutes, 41.95 seconds in the 5,000-meter race on Thursday night. Her previous best was 16:54.12, which was already an NCAA provisional qualifying mark.
“I felt pretty good the whole time, I was just focused on staying on pace and not worried about the other people running around me,” Monoszlay said. “I was focusing on maintaining the pace I needed to reach my goal time and it went well.”
Monoszlay’s time was just three seconds behind the Cal Poly Pomona record. She now holds the best 5,000-meter time in the West Region. She has a total of three different provisional marks this season in the 1,500 meters, 800 meters and the 5,000 meters.
Senior Hannah Stueve finished 18th and set a personal best in the pole vault, as she cleared the bar at 3.75 meters, earning a provisional mark.
To go along with Stueve, junior Zaria Francis earned a provisional mark in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.85 seconds.
In the 100-meter hurdles, junior Nia Vance also earned a provisional mark with a time of 14.13 seconds. Vance also improved her provisional mark in the triple jump with a 12.14-meter leap, third best in school history.
Vance finished 17th in the hurdles and 23rd in the long jump.
On the men’s side, junior Kyle Lawson continued to improve in the decathlon, as he set a new personal best with 7,066 points finishing sixth.
Lawson was just 74 points away from breaking the school record.
“I had some big personal records in a couple of events, so I felt really good and excited to be able to compete here and really thankful to be able to go over 7,000,” Lawson said.
In the 10 events of the decathlon, Lawson set personal bests in four of them.
On Wednesday, he ran 11.26 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 51.95 in the 400-meter race.
In the long jump, Lawson also posted a leap of 6.79 meters.
Lawson’s previous best in the decathlon was 6,834 points, which led the West region and put him ninth in the nation in Division II.
“Kyle works his tail off every single day trying to perfect all 10 events. This is just a culmination of a lot of years of hard work,” Bradford said.
Freshman Ryan Fields and sophomore Kaelin Moore improved their provisional marks in the 400-meter hurdles, as Fields finished with a time of 52.08 seconds and Moore finished with a time of 52.64 seconds.
Fields finished fourth in the event and Moore seventh.
The Broncos will now have a tune-up as they will head to UC Irvine for the Steve Scott Invitational this weekend.
The following week will be the CCAA championships, hosted by UC San Diego.
