Sacramento Running News

Lea Wallace at the Big Sky Conference Championships

On Wednesday, we learned that Lea Wallace had won her heat in the NCAA 800 semi-finals.

Today, Wallace came in 6th place in the 2nd heat of the 1500. Fortunately, the 2nd heat was a lot faster than the 1st heat and she advanced on time.

Wallace’s 4:17.65 was the sixth fastest of the semi-finals.

Of Wallace racing in both the 800 and 1500, Hornet’s coach Scott Abbott says, “This is a very tough double and she is finding out how tough it is, but she is handling everything very well.”

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Lea Wallace is the first Hornet woman to advance to NCAA finals in two events. Photo from the Big Sky Conference Champs

This weekend, three Hornets earned a trip to the NCAA Finals at Drake University by advancing out of the NCAA West Preliminaries in Eugene.

Senior Ronald Brookins will be making his second appearance at the NCAA finals in the 110 meter hurdles after finishing 2nd in his quarterfinal heat, running the event’s 5th fastest time of 13.47.

Teammate and fellow senior Lea Wallace advanced to the finals in the 800 on Friday, and again in the 1500 meters on Saturday. Friday, Wallace won her 800 heat and posted the fourth fastest time of 2:03.69. Then on Saturday, she took 2nd in her heat in the 1500 to automatically advance to the final, and posted the 7th fastest time of 4:20.38.

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It looks like another local college’s track and field program had a good year, this time at the community college level.

The American River College men won the California Community College Athletic Association Track and Field Championships this weekend on their home turf.

Mt. San Antonio and El Camino tied for the women’s crown.

To wrap it all up, the Beavers won the 4 x 400 relay with the state-best time of the season, 3 minutes, 13.00 seconds.

A 1970s teletype version of the complete results is here (PDF).

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Celebrating Hornets

There was wind and there was unseasonably cool temperatures. There were cramps and pulled muscles, and there was the occasional jackrabbit bolting across the track and mid-field. When the all-weather track dust had settled, both the Sac State Men and the Sac State Women had clinched Big Sky Conference outdoor titles.

The Hornet women earned their fourth consecutive team title, with a commanding 236 points. Montana finished second with 133 while Eastern Washington was third at 79.

While the women have been there before, this was the first time the men got to enjoy wearing the outdoor title. The men scored 204.5 points, ahead of  Northern Arizona who finished with 167.

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Kortnee Burton and Rochelle Kanuho of Northern Arizona battle for 2nd halfway through the women's 10,000 meters.

There has already been plenty of action at Hornet Stadium this week and results are being posted live here.

As of this evening, the Hornets women are in first place over Montana and the Hornets men are in second behind Northern Arizona.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Big Sky Conference Championships and I look forward to seeing you there!

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Last weekend, at the 2011 Payton Jordan Invitational, the Hornets’ Lea Wallace ran the second fastest collegiate 1500 meters of the season in 4:11.31.

You can go watch Wallace as she runs the 800 and 1500 meters at this weekend’s Big Sky Conference Championships. (You really should.)

In the meantime, you can check out this Flowtrack Workout Wednesday video of one of Wallace’s last training sessions before Payton Jordan, and see a little of Hornets’ coach Scott Abbott, too!

Watch more videos on Flotrack

This week, CSUS will be hosting the Big Sky Conference track and field championships at Hornet Stadium.

Events are already underway, and the Hornets’ Sam Schur has already won the decathlon! Schur is the first Sac State athlete to win this event!

The main body of the meet begins tomorrow and runs through Saturday. This is a great chance to support the local team and check out some of the fastest collegiate runners in the country.

The Hornets women go into the meet with a three-championship streak, so they are clearly the team to beat.

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It must be spring! Not only am I sneezing every 30-seconds, it seems as though we were overwhelmed with races and tasty results to report on.

In track and field, Stanford was host to the 2011 Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational, where the Hornets’ Lea Wallace turned out the 2nd fastest Division I 1500 of the year. Wallace, in her first 1500 of the season, ran 4:11.31. The only collegiate athlete ahead of her is Jordan Hasay (Oregon), who ran 4:10.28 in the same race this weekend. Letsrun.com has an excellent write-up about the event.

Up in Oregon on Sunday, Sacramento’s Jenny Hitchings ran a PR 2:46:10 in the Eugene Marathon–just 11 seconds shy of the Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying time. Hitchings was 5th woman overall, and 2nd masters behind Bend’s Kami “The Machine” Semick.

Speaking of close calls, at the Quicksilver 50K in San Jose, Jen Pfeifer, of El Dorado (former of Folsom), was reportedly in the lead until the final mile of the race where she went off course and picked up several extra minutes. While lost, Pfeifer was passed by a more attentive Adona Ramos, of San Jose. Ramos took the win with only about 15-seconds to spare.

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About a month ago, when talking about the Hornets prospects for the rest of the season, distance coach Scott Abbott promised big things for 800 meter runner Lea Wallace. He noted that at the time, “Lea Wallace was the number one ranked half-miler in the nation at 2:03.07.”

Well, Wallace has since improved on that time with a 2:02.95 at the Mondo Mid-Major Challenge, setting a school record in the process. Wallace’s time also maintains her standing the nation’s fastest in the 800, and sets her up as the one to beat at this year’s NCAA Champs.

We’ll be looking forward to seeing what she can do at the NCAA Div I Championships in June.

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On Friday at the Standford Invitational, Sac State Hornet freshman Reesey Byers, of Santa Rosa, ran his first collegiate 5000 meters, and broke a long-standing school record in the process.

In an early heat, Byers ran comfortably in the middle of the chase pack for much of the race, breaking away late to chase down the leaders and the school record.

“Reesey ran a very smart race, running with control early on, and then really being aggressive in the latter stages, which is the proper way to run high level races like Stanford Invitational,” said Hornets Coach Scott Abbott.  “What most impressed me was how he handled himself in the final 400 meters.  He made a strong move with about a mile to go to catch the leaders, and then ended up backsliding a little in the final kilometer and looked like he may have been dead in the water heading into the final lap. But, he dug deep and ran with a lot of heart over the last lap and competed very hard, and that ended up being the difference between a good race and what turned out to be a great race.”

Byers’ 14:19.o1 finish time eclipsed Noel Hitchcock’s record 14:22.90 set in 1971. Byers is the first Sacramento State runner to break 4:30 on the 5K since Darrin Slade ran a 14:28.00 in 1989.

It looks like the Hornet men are gearing up for a good track season, as sophomore Daniel Mitchell, of Carmichael, ran a 31-second personal best 14:41.79 in the same meet.

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