By Leonard COUTIN

Southern California residents witnessed the two-day Arcadia Invitational track and field meet extravaganza that celebrated its 50th year. Competition started in the early evening on Friday and included all day Saturday running and field events that continued into the late evening. The day also featured a bonus of elite races for spectators. With the arrival of mid season, athletes are performing top times in their events. Welcoming teams outside of California, the Arcadia Invitational brought an abundance of talent to the games that added to the number of new records set.

It was during the Friday night program that crowds witnessed the national record-breaking time of 16:41.30 by the team from Utah, American Fork, composed of McKay Johns, Casey Clinger, Patrick Parker and Carson Clinger in the men’s 4×1600. Shattering the old time set by the Great Oak team, the American Fork team shaved 11 seconds off (16:52.95); the splits were 4:26 (first runner) followed by 4:08, 4:05 and an anchor leg of 4:02 that wowed the crowd.

Falcon Colin FitzGerald participated in two races over the weekend. Running the seeded mile race, FitzGerald took command after the 800m to take the lead over the group. Unfortunately he fell short at the last 100m, allowing Ethan Powell of Air Academy, who battled FitzGerald right until the finish line, to take the win. Powell recorded a time of 4:18.62 to FitzGerald’s 4:19.41.

On Saturday night FitzGerald raced in the men’s 3200 rated race and ran a time of 9:19.53 to place 11th. Winner Zach Litoff from Monarch won with a time of 9:10.28. The Falcons also sent their team of Geck Spencer, Artin Allahverdian, Zach Johnson and Dylan Wilbur to run in the 4×1600 seeded Friday night where they scored 14th place.

Photos by Leonard COUTIN

  Leonard Coutin