Cliché and sport go hand-in-hand. (See.) “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” is one of the most over-used clichés of all. The beauty of track & field is that it’s a marathon (10,000 meters anyway) and a sprint. And throws and vaults and hops and skips and jumps.
The Chico State men’s track & field team got contributions in all facets while winning its 10th straight California Collegiate Athletic Association title in dominating fashion this weekend. However, outside of celebrating with another banner, the sprinters provided perhaps the biggest highlight of the weekend Saturday in Turlock.
J P Smith, Jordan Alford-Helems, Nick Sloggy and Josiah Damaris Greer - Chico State's Wildcats of the Week - ganged up to win the 4x100-relay in a Chico State season-best time of 41.59.
“The mantra of the week was ‘we got this,” said Wildcats Head Coach Oliver Hanf. “When those guys won, I feel like we all knew that was true. That we were going to win.”
Chico State’s sprinters have often taken a backseat to the Wildcats’ distance runners, decathletes and the like. Not this time.
Smith, who ran the first leg for the 4x100 team that gave Chico State 10 points on the way to its winning total of 210 (UC San Diego was a distant second with 150.5), added 25 more points to the team total while competing in six other events. He finished third in the 110-meter hurdles and long jump, fourth in the 100 meters, fifth in the high jump, sixth in the 200 meters and eighth in the javelin.
Alford-Helems, who ran the second leg, tacked on a second-place finish in the 100 meters with an NCAA Provisional Qualifying time of 10.66. He also finished fifth in the 200 meters.
Sloggy handed off the baton to Greer, and with the clean handoff, the win. However, he’d pulled a muscle during his turn. He still limped through the 400-meter finals though, netting the Wildcats two more points. That came a day after he set a personal record with a 48.87 in qualifying.
Greer crossed the finish line well ahead of the competition, completing the Wildcats’ inspiring win. The senior would later post a PR of 10.85 in the 100-meter finals – the final race of his career – netting the Wildcats three more points with a sixth-place finish.
