ULV dominates Multi-Dual meets

by Adrian Medrano
Staff Writer

The University of La Verne men’s and women’s track and field teams were successful this weekend in the first Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Dual-Meet of the season.

The ULV men finished with a perfect 7-0 record en route to winning the dual meet in Claremont and the women took second place in Whittier as they finished 6-1 overall, losing only to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

The men rode on the backs of strong performances by junior Donte Witherspoon, sophomore Roger Logan and junior Eric Chambless.

Witherspoon won the long jump and triple jump events, achieving personal best marks of 21 feet 11 inches and 44 feet 1 inch, respectively.

“The guy in front of me set a mark that I had to beat,” Witherspoon said. “I knew that I had to beat him in order to get some points on the board.”

Along with winning his events, Witherspoon was also named the SCIAC Male Athlete of the Week for the week ending March 7.

Witherspoon was able to accomplish these feats despite the fact that this was his first week of track practice because he was busy with the men’s basketball team prior to the track season.

One reason for Witherspoon’s success is the fact that this is the first year in which he began the track season injury free.

Logan also set a personal best mark as he smoked past the competition, running a 10.88 in the 100-meter race.

Logan was pleased with his performance, especially because it came against one of his biggest rivals.

“Regardless of what happened in the race, I knew that I was going to beat Les Fletcher,” Logan said.

Fletcher, a CMS sprinter, was fortunate enough to squeak past Logan last year in the 100-meter race, but Logan was strong enough this year to earn the victory and avenge himself.

Darnell Gilbert also earned first place in his heat of the 100-meter race.

Chambless won the 400-meter hurdles, finishing the race in 56.90. Kelly Wood won the steeplechase with a time of 10:05.

The lone disappointment for the men was the performance of their throwers as usual reliable seniors Bobby Vail and Ryan Cairney were unable to win first place in their respective events.

The women were led by junior sprinter Deonne McLean as she dominated the competition in both the 200 and 400-meter races, winning her respective heats.

Freshmen Erica Holmes also earned first place in her 400-meter heat.

Senior Christy DeLapp won first place in the high jump and Lakia Simms won the triple jump.

Multi-sport athlete Lisa Mila took first place in the javelin with a throw of 125 feet.

Mila was satisfied with her performance saying that she felt good after earning first place.

“I feel like I am a lot more consistent than I was last year,” Mila said.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will participate in the Ben Brown Invitational meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Fullerton.