By Matthew DeForest, Apr. 19, 2022
On Thursday, April 14, and Friday, April 15, Cal Poly Pomona traveled just two miles down the road to Mt. San Antonio College for the annual Mt. SAC Relays track and field festival.
Team captain Ryan Fields and the men’s Broncos track and field team competed in multiple events against local opponents and those from across the country, accomplishing various goals and beating personal records.
Despite the highs and lows of the meet, Fields said the team is not worried about their place going into the conference championships.
“I’m very confident that we can win; we’re stacked in a lot of events,” said Fields. “Just how we did compared to our conference from the stats I’ve seen, I’m pretty confident.”
Alejandro Sandoval Guzman and Gerardo Flores threw for CPP in the shot put prelims. Flores and Guzman were hoping to qualify for Friday’s finals and to get more opportunities to qualify for the Division II national championships. But unfortunately, neither athlete was able to qualify for the finals on Friday. There were still positives to take away, with Guzman setting his third- best mark of the season and Sandoval setting his sixth-best mark.
On Friday, Fields led the way alongside Nnamdi Onwaneze and Alessio Sommacal for the men in the 110-meter hurdles prelim race. Again, the Broncos were unable to qualify for the final race later in the day. The team still came out with a strong team result. Onwaneze posted a time of 14.35 seconds, his second-best mark of this season. Fields missed the final qualifying spot by just 0.04 in photo finish race.
Fields’ time of 13.92 finally met his goal of breaking through the 14-second mark.
“I was really excited about that; it’s been my goal ever since I got to the low 14s,” said Fields. “I just felt like it was finally time to break through that barrier. For the national level, low 14s are really good. Everyone that hits the low 14s, their goal is to get into the 13s.”
The relays continued for CPP with Fields, Jaelen Craft and Kaelin Moore racing in a very competitive 400 hurdle event. The Broncos raced against multiple Division I talents, including University of Houston’s Quivell Jordan, who currently holds the seventh- best national Division I time in the 400 hurdles.
Craft and Moore raced alongside one another in the first heat of the day. After getting off of the blocks to a strong start, the Broncos began to fall behind. Overall, they were able to take home sixth and eighth in their heat, respectively.
Fields was able to win his individual heat with a time of 51.47 and take sixth overall against 42 other competitors in the 400 hurdles.
After getting off to a slow start, Fields began to pick up the pace going to the first turn of the race. Coming around the bend, he worked his way through the pack by overtaking runners from the University of Iowa and the University of Colorado.
The final straight became a battle between Fields and Will Mundy of the University of Oregon. Each runner traded first and second multiple times before Fields was able to squeeze out the victory for CPP by a margin of just 0.07.
“I was having a little bit of a hamstring issue, so I didn’t get out super hard,” said Fields. “I thought in my head ‘I’m going to catch them on the straight.’ They were in front of me in the last 100 meters, but I guess it was the competitive spirit in me that pushed me to the finish line.”
CPP’s final event for the men’s team was the fan- favorite 4×400 meter relay race. CPP took sixth place overall in the event, finishing almost two seconds ahead of conference rival Cal State Los Angeles.
Sprinter Camden Patterson gave the Broncos a strong start, and the team was holding onto first going into the first baton pass. Despite a hard race the rest of the way, CPP was unable to hold onto the lead and finished second in their heat, less than a second behind first place.
Patterson said the team felt good about the event overall. He said they have been chasing a Division II provisional and have consistently been just a quarter-second off the mark.
“Overall, I feel like we all did really well, and we held our own against some big Division I competition,” said Patterson. “Our hand-offs have gotten a lot better since Stanford. It just comes down to how bad everybody wants it.”
Coming out of this meet, the team is feeling confident in its ability to continue to post strong performances, especially against local conference rivals.
Hurdler Alessio Sommacal said that this attitude and confidence starts with coaching and trickles down through team captains.
Sommacal reiterated that the team is working at consistency and using friendly competition at practice to push each other. He and others on the team are excited to end the year strong and hopefully take league titles for both the men’s and women’s teams.
The Broncos will go into battle next on April 29 through April 30 at the Steve Scott Invitational hosted by UC Irvine.
Featured image by Matthew DeForest.