Cal State Fullerton captures men’s team title; Bender, Clancy selected top performers

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Jenna Hinkle could never be accused of not being a team player.

Asked to rise above and beyond by her coaches Saturday afternoon, the UC Santa Barbara senior made a difficult challenge look easy.

In the span of 2 hours, 15 minutes, Hinkle ran the 1,500 meters, the 800, and the 5,000 – and won two of them – to nearly push the Gauchos women to a team victory in the final day of the Big West Championships at Cal State Northridge.

The Gauchos didn’t get that crown; a late win by Long Beach State’s 4x400 relay team gave the 49ers the team title, 122 points to 120. Cal State Fullerton won for the men, tallying 154 points to Long Beach State’s 136.5.

RESULTS

Voting by conference coaches gave Athlete of the Meet honors to UC Davis’s Kyle Clancy – who won the decathlon last weekend in addition to his third consecutive conference championship in the high jump at 6 feet, 9 inches – and UC Santa Barbara’s Hope Bender, who won the heptathlon last weekend and the 400 hurdles Saturday in a school-record 58.02 seconds.

Give a big-time assist, though, to Hinkle.

“Yeah, it was a big day,” she said. “My coach kind of warned me coming into the day that he had a feeling he was going to need me to do the (5,000). If my team needed me to do it, I was going to do it.”

She won the 1,500, which started at 2:21 p.m., in 4:28.56. Only a strong performance by Cal State Fullerton’s Samantha Huerta (2:07.63) relegated Hinkle (2:08.97) to second place in the 800, which started at 3:25 p.m.

In the 5,000, which began around 4:15 p.m., Hinkle turned back a strong showing by Cal Poly’s Miranda Daschian (16:48.88) to win in 16:47.43.

“I went into the race kind of like, ‘I need to place as high as I can for the team,’” she said. “And I was winning, so that was exciting.”

At that point, the Gauchos were very much in the running for the team title. When noted there was still time to find a way to get her into the 4x400 relay, she laughed.

“I don’t know about that,” said Hinkle, who said she’s never done all three distance events in one day before – let alone that close together.

“I think I’d probably collapse.”

Bender said her win in the 400 hurdles was partly fueled by the 100 hurdles, where she finished third in 13.73 behind Cal State Northridge’s Courtney Robinson (13.56) and UC Irvine’s Tyra Jones (13.72).

“A lot of it was adrenaline; a lot of it was just the Lord giving me some extra strength down the stretch,” Bender said. “And the 90-second runs we did all fall with Coach. I’m sure that helped, as well.”

In the end, though, Long Beach State’s girls had a little too much depth for UC Santa Barbara.

Both 49ers relays won, with junior Cortne Davis anchoring the 4x100 team to a victory in 44.63 seconds. Davis also won the 200 in 23.73 and just missed in the 100, placing second (11.60) to UC Irvine’s Persis William-Mensah (11.57).

“Because I was disappointed (in not winning the 100), I just used that drive to win the 200,” Davis said.

Sophomore Anaya Alexander won the 400 in a personal-best 53.79. She also anchored the winning 4x400 relay team to a win in 3:40.74.

Cal State Fullerton’s men earned just three victories Saturday, but with six different programs producing at least one winner, the Titans’ depth gave them the team title.

Junior Thaddeus Smith just missed a season best, but won the 100 in 10.46. And Mason Guzman-Sanchez enjoyed a homecoming of sorts – he prepped at nearby Mission Hills Alemany – by outsprinting Cal State Northridge’s Josh Turner to win the 110 hurdles by one-hundredth in 14.23.

What gave him the edge – besides a good lean?

“I feel like it was a combination of panic, urgency and patience, weirdly enough,” Guzman-Sanchez said.

Cal Poly’s Swarnjit Boyal joined Clancy as the only men’s double individual winners, as he followed up his Friday night victory in the 10,000 (33:57.69) by winning the 5,000 (14:44.24) on Saturday. He had to hold off hard charges at the end by UC Santa Barbara’s Daniel Mountcastle (14:44.77) and Patrick Bourke (14:44.98) to earn his second consecutive 5K crown.

“They’re our rivals,” Boyal said. “When it gets to conference time, they want it, and we want it. They got second and third, and I was glad I was able to come home with that first place.”

While Clancy was understandably pleased with his performance – he shook off a fever on the first day of the meet – he was more proud for his team, which placed third behind Fullerton and Long Beach.

“Honestly, and I’m not even just saying this, as a team we just showed up today,” Clancy said of the Aggies.  “It was a strong showing for UC Davis, probably the best we’ve had in a long time. We all worked really hard.”