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CMS Men's Track and Field Rolls to SCIAC Title by 40 Points at Home Track

CMS Men's Track and Field Rolls to SCIAC Title by 40 Points at Home Track

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's track and field team had six first-place finishes on Sunday to pull away from the competition and capture the 2019 SCIAC Championship at the Burns Track Complex.

CMS, which was picked fourth in the preseason SCIAC poll, ended up with a healthy margin of victory of 40 points (211.50 to 171.50) over a Pomona-Pitzer team that was ranked No. 2 in the nation and came in to the championship as heavy favorites. 



The Stags finished a perfect weekend in the throwing events with Matthew Sill winning the discus and Reese Peterson coming in second, the same 1-2 finish as yesterday in the hammer. Yesterday, Sill edged Peterson by a foot, while today, Sill's discus throw of 150 feet, two inches (10th all-time at CMS) edged Peterson by almost the exact same margin, with Peterson 14 inches behind at 149 feet.

Peterson, though, would get his gold medal in his final event of the championship, winning the shot put on his final throw with a personal-best of 48 feet, nine inches, moving him into a tie for ninth in CMS history. He edged out defending champion Matthew Hayashi of Redlands, who had a top throw of 48 feet, 1.25 inches. 

Junior Walker Quinn added another field title for the Stags with a win in the pole vault, clearing 15 feet, 7.25 inches (4.76 meters) to edge out Garrett Silva of Whittier, who were the final two to advance past 4.66 meters. 

The track saw three first-place finishes for the Stags as well. Sophomore Alex McDonald cruised to a big win in the 400-meter hurdles in 53.10 seconds, passing his old personal best of 53.76 and moving him into a tie for second in CMS history. Freshman Miles Christensen had a big win in the 5000 meters, blowing by senior All-American Andy Reischling of Pomona-Pitzer on the final lap to win in 14:42.67, a final margin of over six seconds. 

The final event of the championship was the 4x400 relay, which CMS captured for the final cherry on its Championship Sunday as sophomore Alex McDonald, sophomore Daniel Addison, freshman Keizo Morgan and freshman Jamie Cockburn finished in 3:19.43, to edge Chapman by just under a half-second (3:19.90). 

Also working their way onto the SCIAC podium for third-place finishes were junior Tse Yang Lim in the triple jump with a top distance of 44'2.5", freshman Garegin Soghomonyan in the pole vault at 14 feet, five inches, senior Corbin Bethurem in the 200 meters (21.80), and junior Wilson Ives in the 1500 (3:55.30), adding to the healthy margin of victory for CMS.

Coming off a disappointing season a year ago, Peterson feels that this year's championship is especially sweet.

"It's pretty huge coming off of last year," Peterson said. "We were looking to come back (this year) and kind of show what we were really made of. This meet was definitely the one we could do it at, and we came in and tore it up." 

With a league title to their credit, the Stags will wait and see which athletes will continue on to the NCAA Division III Championships later this month.  In the meantime, there will be a couple of final events for athletes to try to improve their marks to qualify for nationals, including their own Claremont Classic Multis on May 9-10 at the Burns Track Complex.