UCSB earned three victories on the first day of the Big West Track & Field Championships on Friday at Pauley Track.
The Gaucho men’s and women’s teams stand in second place. Th women scored 61 points and right on the heels of Cal State Fullerton with 61.5. The men have 45 points and trail Long Beach State, which has 64.
Big West heptathlon champion Hope Bender added a long jump title with the second best jump in school history at 20-7.75. She edged out Erin Beattie of UC Davis who had leap of 20-5.75. Bender is UCSB’s first long jump champion since Jodi Bailey in 1998.
Juniors Katie Camarena and Chloe Cox were able to pull off one of the biggest wins of the day for the women by going 1-2 in the 3000m steeplechase, clocking times of 10:34.21 and 10:36.29 respectively, ranking fifth and sixth on the UCSB All-Time List for that event.
Shadowing the top runners for the first half of the race, Camarena would burst into the lead with just over two and a half laps to go, with Cox right behind her and 2018 conference champion Gabrielle De La Rosa in tow. Heading into the final lap, a slight stumble from De La Rosa after clipping a barrier would give Camarena the perfect time to strike, with Cox following the move just on Camarena’s outside. Neck and neck off the final barrier, Camarena would finally pull away from Cox for the victory, making her the second Gaucho ever to win the steeplechase at the conference meet, the first being Bethany Blomquist when she won back to back titles in 2006 and 2007.
Missing the first half of the season due to a back injury, sophomore Nick Randazzo slowly worked his way back to culminate in a Big West Conference title in the 10,000 meters to edge out 2018 Big West Cross Country Champion Jake Ritter of Cal Poly 30:49.22 to 30:49.87.
With Ritter starting to pull away with 200m left, Randazzo would swing wide with a huge amount of run left in the tank, going neck and neck with the Cal Poly sophomore all the way to the line, with Randazzo overtaking him in the final strides to win, an emphatic fist pump in celebration included to top things off as he crossed the line with a 59.37 last lap.
Senior Cassidy Peng amassed 12 points on day 1 thanks to a second-place finish in the pole vault and a fifth place finish in the long jump.
The Gaucho men would take fourth, sixth, and eighth in the steeplechase with true freshman Jack Landgraf leading the way in 9:17.68.