The Bakersfield College men’s and women’s Track and Field season got under way on Jan. 28 at Antelope Valley College in the AVC All-Comers invitational meet. BC coach David Frickel discussed the meet.
“This was the first opportunity to compete in track since they haven’t competed since last year,” said Frickel.
“It was not a bad day, it was pretty breezy out there, it was kind of cool, kind of windy, kind of cold, so you’re not going to get super sprint times at the end of January when the weather is not very good.”
He went on to discuss the fact that it was just an all-comers meet, and that it’s considered a low key type of event.
He added, “We’re going to go back this week and do the same thing, so it’s kind of just an intro into competition, whoever shows up.
“Some colleges were there, high schools, people that are out of college, so it’s just kind of an all-comers type of meet, what shows up, shows up. There were only two junior colleges there, ourselves and Antelope Valley.”
When asked to name some of his standout athletes, he mentioned a mix from both the men and women’s side.
BC’s Rachel Evans placed fourth in the women’s 200-meter dash with a time of 28.16, and teammate Sarena Underwood finished fifth in the same event at 28.91.
In the women’s 800, Tejera Dial took second place with a time of 2:31.35, and in the women’s discus throw, Amanda Mosby got second place with a throw of 29.21 meters.
On the men’s side, Myren Moore won the 200-meter dash with a 22.75 time, Justin Evans won the 400 in 51.78, Davis Looustalot captured the 800 in 2:01.80, and Christopher Schwartz won the 1500 meter run in 4:11.83.
The Antelope Valley meet gave Frickel a good insight into where the squads are at as far as their overall progress to date.
“It’s a good gauge progress wise right now, see where we need to go in the next couple of weeks before the real season begins,” he said.
When asked about his expectations for the year, Frickel had this to say, “We just want to improve as the season goes. We want to get as many people as we can into the conference finals, and advance from there into post-season competition and into So Cal prelim finals, then state, so everything basically for us is a building block.
“We only meet a couple of times as a conference during the season, so most of the stuff during the season, most of our meets are basically invitational.”
Frickel summarized his expectations by saying, “Each week during the season in the next several months, we just want to see progress in everybody in terms of dropping their marks, on going farther or whatever. Each week is kind of a building block, kind of a continuum.”
BC’s next meet will be on Feb. 4 at the same venue.