Track & Field begins to dominate field events

Story and Photo by Daniel Gaona

Field events are new additions to the strong points of the Pima Community College men’s and women’s track and field teams, with two regular season meets left.

Running events remain solid for the Aztecs, but the field events are beginning to gain national attention.

Pima will travel to the UCSD Triton Invitational in San Diego April 23-24, then to Glendale Community College on May 1. Beyond that are the regional and national championships.

Stephan Bullard is confident heading into the latter part of the season. He is hoping to run a 47.8 in the open 400-meter dash at the Triton Invitational. He also wants his team to run a 3:12 in the 4×400 relay and break the school record once again.

“I need to crank down on speeds and I have my competition scoped out and everything,” Bullard said. “I mentally know what I have to do, now I just have to do it physically with the speed work.”

Stephan Bullard

Off the track, head coach Greg Wenneborg is enthusiastic about the throwing staff.

“We have a lean crew, but three of them are going to the national championships with solid marks,” Wenneborg said about the throwers.

Sharissa Korn is currently the No. 2 athlete in the women’s javelin. Since qualifying for nationals earlier this season, she has continued to better herself each meet.

“I’ve just worked out really hard and have been training really hard and being strict with myself,” Korn said. “It’s a good feeling because all that is finally paying off.”

Korn plans on working on her form a lot more, which she said would make a big difference.

“I have to work on my form more because I’m using mostly just muscles right now and my form is pretty bad,” she said. “Once I get my form in that click, it will be good.”

She won the event at Mesa Community College on April 16. Her 139 foot, 2-1/2 inch toss bumped her up to second place nationally.

“I think she is a contender now,” Wenneborg said about Korn. “Just like that, she became a threat to win a national title.”

Her cohort Jessica Davis recently qualified for the women’s hammer throw, but she is still in search of more. Davis placed third in the hammer throw at Mesa with a 138-10 toss.

“I still have to qualify in discus and then shot put is after that,” Davis said. “I just have to get my throws perfect. I’ve done it before but when it comes to meet time, I can’t get it right. It’s just something for me to work on.”

Christian Tovar already qualified for shot put at nationals and he did not compete in it at Mesa. However, he placed third in the hammer throw.

Zach Dunbar, who splits his time between track and football, is hoping to qualify for the men’s javelin. He threw 169-1 earlier this season, which is about 15 feet shy of the qualifying mark.
Wenneborg also continues to be impressed by the jumpers.

“Jumps have never been a factor for us in the last five years and now they’re turning out to be another strong suit for us,” Wenneborg said.

At the conference meet on April 16, four Aztecs finished in the top nine spots of the long jump while three placed in the top four of the high jump.

Devin Phillips jumped 23-3-1/2 to win the long jump and Frederick Scarber cleared 6-6-3/4 in the high jump to place second.

On the women’s side, Chloe’ Nowell won the triple jump with a 36-4-1/2 jump and Gabby Siltanen won the high jump with a 5-1 leap.

Hector Araujo won the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:12.

Wenneborg think the team still has more athletes to qualify.

“We’re really deep and wide right now and we are very excited to have 20 student-athletes to the national championships and I think we are still going to get another five or six,” Wenneborg said.

The coach expects the women’s 4×800 relay squad to qualify and Magda Mankel to secure a spot in the 1,500 and 5,000-meter runs.

Some athletes on the men’s side who are likely to qualify soon are Derrick Coker and Chris Phillips in sprints and Kyle Bush in distance.

Coker had personal bests in the 100-meter dash, 10.70, and 200-meter dash, 21.76, at the Mesa meet. Both of his times were within one second of the mark.

Phillips is pushing to qualify in the 400-meter dash.

He is within half a second and has a spot in the 4×400 team that is qualified for nationals.

Bush ran the 1,500 at Mesa in 4:07.43.

That time was seven seconds over the qualifying mark.