Van Leersum wins twice to spark Vaqueros to WSC title
Bas van Leersum won the 400 meters and 400 hurdles on Friday and SBCC captured the WSC Championship in men’s track and field on its home turf at La Playa Stadium. It’s the first conference title in at least 45 years.
Bas van Leersum won the 400 meters and 400 hurdles on Friday and SBCC captured the WSC Championship in men's track and field on its home turf at La Playa Stadium. It's the first conference title in at least 45 years.
The Vaqueros topped the 10-team field with 138 points, edging Canyons by 10. West L.A. was third at 124.5 and Cuesta took fourth with 110.5.
"It feels good to win the title," said seventh-year coach Scott Fickerson. "We didn't even have this on our radar until last week when we took the lead and started scoring things out based on our qualifiers.
"We knew it would be a battle between five teams, there wasn't really a team that was dominant. We focused on taking care of ourselves and improving on our marks and our seeds. Our goal was to score 100 points today and we got 96 (the Vaqueros scored 42 points in final events at last week's prelims)."
Van Leersum, who scored 20 points, shaved 0.12 seconds off his school record in the 400 hurdles with a 53.09 clocking. He won the 400 in 48.14, missing the school record by 0.13 seconds. The sophomore from the Netherlands also ran on the 4 x 100 relay, which took second in 41.78, the No. 3 time in SBCC history and the fastest time since 1975. He anchored the 4 x 400 relay to third place and their fastest time of the year (3:19.55).
The throwers had a big day with Marvin Magg winning the shot put in 13.92 meters and the Vaqueros taking three of the top four spots for 21 points. John Morgan was third at 13.22m and Joseph Ochoa took fourth at 13.15. Morgan was second in the discus (43.75m) and Magg was sixth.
Adam Grimmitt got the Vaqueros going with a third-place effort in the 3,000 steeplechase.
Tyler Higby was fourth in the 100 (11.01) and 200 (21.87) and ran on both relays. Alex Heuchert took fifth in both the 1500 and 5000 meters. Bradley Apodaca was fifth in the 10,000 and seventh in the 5000.
The Vaqueros qualified 20 athletes and both relays for next Saturday's Southern Cal Prelims at Cerritos College. The Vaqueros had five conference champions in the two-day meet.
