Several former South County high school standouts were featured in Friday’s distance carnival events at the 38th Aztec Track and Field Invitational at San Diego State University.
Runners from Southwestern, Cuyamaca and San Diego Mesa community colleges were prominently featured in the men’s and women’s 1500-meter distance while Eastlake High School graduate Trent Warren, now running for Cal State San Marcos after a four-year stint at Oregon, highlighted the competition in the men’s invitational 3,000-meter field.
The meet included community college, university and even high school runners. Competition continues Saturday, March 26, from 9 a.m. to 4:50 at the AzTrack on the SDSU Sports Deck.
Friday’s distance carnival started with the high school boys and girls mile, followed by men’s and women’s mile races before launching into the steeplechase, 5000 meters, 1500 meters and finally the 3000-meter races including separate men’s and women’s heats.
Runners from Cuyamaca College put on a prominent display in the men’s open 1500. Isaiah Thomas (Otay Ranch), Kiernan Elam (West Hills), Oscar Soto (El Cajon Valley) and Ryan Najera (University City) each competed in separate heats.
Soto led the bunch with a time of 4:01.66 while Thomas timed 4:07.56. Elam timed 4:13.03 while Najera won his heat in 4:19.11.
Southwestern College’s Erick Padilla turned in a 5:00.20 finishing time out of more than 100 runners who competed in the event.
UC Santa Barbara turned in the top five times between all the heats, with Shyan Vaziri leading the Gauchos with the top time of 3:47.54.
Soto, who placed second in the Grossmont Valley League finals in 2014, was the top community college runner in the event.
Friday’s time was a season best in the 1500. He also ran 1:54.40 earlier in the 800 earlier in the day at the Aztec Invitational to record the fourth-best time overall behind Nicholas Thorton’s top time of 1:52.78.
“Last year, my first at Cuyamaca, things went well,” Soto explained. “I ran a personal best 3:55.30 in the 1500 (11th in the state) and 1:53.48 in the 800 (ninth in the state). This year, I’m coming back from an injury and looking forward to improving as the season goes on.”
Soto has already made improvement, shaving a second off his time in the 800 and three seconds in the 1500 from his performance two weeks earlier at the Occidental distance carnival.
Soto placed third in the section 800 finals with a career best time of 1:53.43 to qualify for the high school state meet. He finished 14th in the state prelims.
Thomas, a 2015 ORHS graduate, posted a career best time of 1:55.90 to place fifth in the 800 section finals last year. He won the Mesa League title in the 1600 with a time of 4:23.55.
His 1500 time in high school was 4:10.38. He won the 800 Mesa League title in 2:01.20 as a sophomore.
Thomas said his move to Cuyamaca was made to further develop his running ability.
“I wanted to PR,” he said. “I thought that I ended high school on a good note, but I find at the JC level I can get a little farther in the 800 and 1500. I’ve been doing pretty well in the 1500; I’m struggling a bit in the 800 but I’m still keeping an eye on making state.”
Elam, a freshman at Cuyamaca, placed fifth overall in last year’s combined Grossmont Conference 800-meter run with a time of 2:03.94 (first among Grossmont Valley League runners). He dropped that to a 2:02.43 at the section prelims the following week but did not advance to the finals.
His best time in the 1500 in high school was 4:37.00.
A theater-arts major, he came to running fairly late in his prep career. “Once I got a taste of winning, I started becoming more and more interested in running,” he said.
He’s still improving by leaps and bounds at the collegiate level. He dropped seven seconds off his 1500 time at Friday’s Aztec Invitational.
“This was the first time I’ve ever raced at night,” Elam noted. “I’ve never had that big meet mentality before and I think that played a part in how I placed. The first 100 meters I was essentially sprinting before I dropped back and worked my way back up.”
Najera, a sophomore with the Coyotes, bolted into the lead midway through his heat.
“It was a pretty good race for me,” the former Centurion explained. “My coaches told me to go our and do my best. If I found the pack moving too slowly, then I could just go for it and take it.
“It was a little slower than I thought. After the second lap, I felt I had to take off and do my thing.”
Warren, a former basketball player who discovered competitive running while undergoing rehabilitation from an injury, became a cross country standout at EHS and then a track star.
Warren won the 1600 distance at the 2011 Mesa League varsity finals in 4:26.26 before setting a career mark of 4:18.69 at the ensuing San Diego Section prelims.
At Oregon, he had personal bests of 1:51.5 in the 800 and 3:44.1 in the 1500. He got to compete at the NCAA Preliminary Round in Austin, Texas, his final year with the Ducks.
He was also a three- time All-Pac 12 honorable mention academic student. This past fall he was an all-academic student as well at CSUSM.
His best time in the 8K during the 2015 cross country season for the Cougars was 24:48.9.
He was the top runner for CSUSM on the cross country course and placed 16th overall at the conference finals – just missing snaring all-conference honors (the top 15 conference finishers make the all-conference team).
Warren got a decent start in the 3000 and alternated between third and fifth place over the first few laps of the seven-and-a-half lap event. He began to move up with two laps to go and managed to hang with the lead pack.
On the bell lap, Warren made a bold move to take the lead but ceded first-place finishing honors to Nicholas Hilton of Team Run Fla with about 100 meters to go.
Warren, an accomplished half-miler and miler in track and field during high school, had alternately concentrated on the 800 and 1500 while at Oregon. He finished at CSU-San Marcos’s top runner during the fall cross country season.
The 3000-meter distance, he said, was something new to him.
“It was a good race — I didn’t think I was going to be in the top pack, wearing flats and coming off an injury, for three weeks,” Warren explained. “But it was good. It wasn’t a really fast time but I stayed competitive.”
He said his strategy was simple: “just hang with the pack.”
“Basically jog a mile and go run the second mile as hard as you can,” he offered in spurts while catching his breath.
“It has been a wonderful experience being able to continue my education at Cal State San Marcos and pursue a master’s degree while being able to do the sport I love,” he added. “I am going to miss my time here at CSUSM dearly.”
Highlights
Two SDSU athletes won events during Friday’s second day of activities: Ashley Henderson in the open 100-meter dash (11.72), Sierra Brabham-Lawrence in the open 100-meter hurdles (13.65) and Je’Neal Ainsworth in the open triple jump (40-9).
Also for the Lady Aztecs, Jasmine Young was the runner-up in the open 400 hurdles (1:04.08) while Jelena McNown was second in the open long jump (18-10).
Southwestern’s Jesse Hawk finished ninth overall in the men’s decathlon with 4,744 points. Cuyamaca’s Nathan Martinez finished eighth with 4,745 points. Both were well behind the 7,139 points posted by decathlon champion Dan Golubovic of UC San Diego.
CS Los Angeles’s Rakel Rosshagen won the women’s heptathlon with 4,766 points.
