The men's distance crew headed to Southern California to face off with some top athletes from all over the state and beyond. In the first race of our night, David French improved on his season best 800m time with a 1:53.08 effort, good for 6th in the fast heat. Logan Stahl, last year's state champion, and still feeling the fatigue of his comeback from a hip injury, ran 1:55.18, which is still 1.5 seconds ahead of last year's pace. In heat 3, Epi Nunez and Alex Chorn went 4-5, both running to season PR's in 1:57.19 and 1:57.98 respectively. In heat 2 of the 1500m, Aidan Schraer took over the pace making early in the race after a pedestrian 67 second first lap. He would fade to 7th (4:05.71 – season PR) late in the race. Taking over the lead at the finish line was freshman Xavier Gaulman who won by 0.02 seconds in 4:02.99 (lifetime PR). Galen Fritz, who led early with Aidan, would also fade down the stretch and finish in 4:13:12. Freshman Abdul Hamid, after a very fast early pace, also faded some over the second half of the 5k, but still held on to run a lifetime best by 39 seconds finishing in 14:58.95. Jason Morris also improved his PR in the 5k by 10 seconds after finishing 21st in heat 2 in 15:27.16. Freshman Sean Gregg, running in only his second 3000m steeplechase, improved his PR from 9:37 to a state leading 9:16.88.

Complete results can be found at http://www.directathletics.com/results/track/36490_m.html