LA VERNE, Calif. – The University of Redlands Men's Track and Field team made a move from fourth to third from Day 1 to Day 2 at the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championships Sunday afternoon as they finished with 95 points and a 7-1 dual record in 2023. The third-place finish is tied (not including COVID season) for the best finish since 2019 when they also took third.

Of the 95 points, the Bulldogs scored in 15 different events including the 1500m (2 Points), 110 Hurdles (6 Points, 3^rd most), 400m (7 Points, T-2nd), 800m (3 Points), 400 Hurdles (2 Points), 200m (2 Points), 4x100 Relay (2 Points), 4x400 Relay (3 Points), Long Jump (15 Points, 1^st), Pole Vault (6 Points, 4^th), Hammer (4 Points), High Jump (15 Points, T-1^st), Triple Jump (16 Points, 1^st), and the 10,000m (4 Points, 4^th).

The Bulldogs got athletes into the finals of nine races with a total of 23 scoring finishes, eight personal bests were set in among those athletes, six earned podium finishes, and three became individual champions.  

Redlands' three individual champions were Owen Schmitz (Fremont, CA) in the High Jump, Markelle Raymond (Fresno, CA) in the Long Jump, and Allyn Asberry-Blanco (Orange County, N.Y.) in the Triple Jump. Schmitz won the High Jump with a 1.87m/6' 1.5" mark. He also was a podium finisher in the Triple Jump, taking third with a final attempt of 13.57m/44' 6.25". He was third in the High Jump at the 2022 SCIAC Championships.

Raymond won the Long Jump with his first jump of 7.10m/23' 3.5", which was a new personal best. He also finished as the runner-up in the 100m with a time of 10.70 and was the anchor leg for the Bulldogs 4x100 relay team that was seventh with a time of 43.33. He was also second in the 100m at last year's championships and improved upon his fourth-place finish in the Long Jump.

The final individual champion was Asberry-Blanco who won the Triple Jump thanks to a second jump of 13.74m/45' 1". He added two other scoring finishes with a fourth-place finish in the High Jump with a second successful height of 1.72m/5' 7.75" and an eighth-place finish in the 110m Hurdles as he ran a 16.54. He improved his Triple Jump, and 110m Hurdle finishes from his first SCIAC Championships last year when he took fifth and ninth place.

Other scoring athletes included Cooper Malerstein (Huntington Beach, CA) who took seventh in the 200m (22.42) and was the second leg of the 4x100 relay team (43.33).

In the 400m final both Jamir Jones (Fairfield, CA) and Jenner Sherman (Eugene, OR) scored, taking third and eighth, respectively. Jones ran a 48.23, a new personal best, and Sherman ran a 51.60 in the final after a personal best 50.91 got him through the preliminaries.

Jones added a seventh-place finish as the third leg of the 4x100 relay team and a sixth-place finish as the lead runner on the 4x400 relay team (3:22.84) that included Kaustubh Josyula (San Jose, CA), Sherman, and Gabriel Meunier (Winslow, AZ).

Sherman, as stated above, was the third leg on the 4x400 relay team that took sixth.

Ronan Byrne (Portola Valley, CA) ran a new personal best time of 1:53.92 in the 800m final as he was sixth.

In the 1500m Riley Lathrop (Honolulu, HI) finished seventh with a personal best time of 3:54.47.

Enrique Verschoor (Mar del Plata, Argentina) picked up four points for the Bulldogs in the 10,000m with a new personal best time of 31:33.44.

One of the most represented events was the 110m Hurdles where Jacob Huset (Tacoma, WA), Gael Orozco (Claremont, CA), and Asberry-Blanco went six-seven-eight for six total points. Huset had a tough championships with no height recorded as the national qualifier in the High Jump, but he did run a personal best time of 16.07 and took sixth in the hurdles while adding a seventh-place finish in the Long Jump thanks to a third jump of 6.42m/21' 10.75".

Orozco ran a 16.40 and was seventh after he made the final thanks to a personal best time of 15.98 in the prelims. He also scored in the 400m hurdles as he posted a personal best time of 56.86, good for seventh.

Joining the successful jumpers and hurdlers were Corte Peterson (Lafayette, CO) and Michael Meheen (Carmel, CA) in the Pole Vault as they were fifth and seventh. Both athletes' best height came during their second heights which were 4.56m/14' 11.5" for Peterson and 4.26m/13' 11.75" for Meheen.

Tyler Davies (Lake Forest, CA) was the lone scorer for the Bulldogs in the throwing events as he took fifth and got Redlands four points in the hammer. His throw of 42.92m/140' 10" came on his fourth attempt and is a new personal best.

The SCIAC Championships do not signal the end of the regular season as the Bulldogs still have three meets before the NCAA Division III National Championships at the end of May as the first of those meets will be this Saturday, May 6 at noon in Eagle Rock at the Occidental Invitational.