Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Fresno State Twilight
Bulldogs Have Strong Opening to Outdoor Season
3/24/2015 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
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March 24, 2015
By Jason Clay
jaclay@csufresno.edu
GoBulldogs.com
FRESNO, Calif. - The Fresno State track and field teams opened up the 2015 outdoor season with the condensed Twilight meet Tuesday evening at Veterans Memorial Stadium and took home 15 first-place in the 22 events.
Competing with the Bulldogs Tuesday was CSU Bakersfield, Cal Poly and San Jose State.
"When you look at this meet it obviously kicks off our outdoor season and we had some really good performances," head coach Scott Winsor said.
For the dual meet scores on the men's side, Fresno State won head-to-head over CSU Bakersfield 61-26 and Cal Poly 54-43. On the women's side, Fresno State defeated San Jose State 72-28, CSU Bakersfield 76-35 and Cal Poly 65-46.
The coaching staff was happy to host a home meet to kick off the outdoor season and do so with this shortened meet that gives the athletes an early chance to compete.
"(Assistant coach) Chris Baptista and I have been talking about this type of format for a couple years actually," Winsor said. "In track and field it is difficult to draw fans and get them to come out and watch a five-hour event... So we tried to condense it, we didn't run every event that we could run tonight and it is two hours, it's competition and it's scored. I think the fans appreciate it and hopefully we can get this to catch on."
In the first running event of the day Bulldog senior Devin Harrison took first place with a time of 10.67, beating out the Cal Poly duo of Joseph Sanfilippo and Cliff Lekas who were right behind at 10.87 and 10.89, respectively.
"I think I got off the block badly, but I got a quick step at the end so I can't really complain about that," Harrison said after winning the 100-meter dash. "I'm kind of notorious for having a slower start, so I've kind of been working on that this year, but I think I wasn't striking at the gun. Something to work on for the next meet."
In the women's 400-meter, two Bulldogs finished neck-and-neck in the top two spots with Njeri Omawahleh edging out Kyra Johnson by one one-hundredth of a second to take first place. Omawahleh's winning time was 56.33.
"Usually in my 400 I go out really fast with the first two and I've been trying to fix that. Then there was the wind that was a big factor," Omawahleh said breaking down her 400-meter dash. "Today I took it out not as aggressive and then coming off the turn I had the wind at my back and I was able to pick it up and run right to the finish line."
Fresno State swept the 4x100 meter relay events Tuesday. The men's team consisting of Harrison, Eric Fernandez, Alex Morris and Jeffrey Dewall beat the Cal Poly team for first place by nearly a second. On the women's side Kimberley Efonye, Omawahleh, Nailah Harris-Murillo and Kyra Johnson clocked in at 47.02 to also edge out the Cal Poly squad for first place.
Couple highlight performances in the field events came from Savannah Miller in the high jump and Karissa Bell in the pole vault. Miller cleared 1.75m to easily win the event and Bell hit a personal-best 3.80m in the pole vault.
"Savannah in the high jump missed 1.80, but she cleared 1.75 which is a good start," Winsor said. "Pole vaulter Karissa Bell PR'd out there in the first meet of the outdoor season and our 4x100 looked pretty good right there at the end. With the wind what it was on the back stretch there, I'm happy with how we competed today."
Senior thrower Brice Sandri won the men's discus with a mark of 51.00m. A 2014 NCAA qualifier in the discus, Sandri picked up where he left off last year when he had three first-place finishes during the outdoor season.
The Bulldogs now head down to San Diego this weekend to compete in the Aztec Invitational March 26-28. Fresno State's second home meet of the season, the Bulldog Invitational, will be held on April 25 out at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
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Players Mentioned
