Pirates race past SCC, GWC, Fullerton in four-way meet

COSTA MESA -- It was smooth sailing for the Orange Coast College men's track team on Friday as the Pirates topped Santiago Canyon (103-51), Golden West (96-58) and Fullerton (100-54) in a four-way meet held at the OCC Track Complex.

Without a doubt, the biggest point-producer for the Pirates came in the 3,000-meter run, where Coast finished 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10. Jay Bonthius won the race with a dominating performance, crossing the finish line with a time of 9 minutes, 15.72 seconds. Not too long afterwards came a sea of orange and blue as six other Pirate teammates followed Bonthius' trail. Kevin Russell took second at 9:28.12, Weston Hall places third at 9:28.3, Jace Hinesly finished fourth at 9:33.8 and Brandon Prieto placed fifth at 9:36.07. Out of nine sub-10-minute times, nine were turned in by Orange Coast.

Coast picked up a triple-set of wins from jumper specialist Cameron Pizzica, who took the high jump with a winning leap of 6-feet, 1 1/4 inches. He then used fewer attempts to edge out Fullerton's Anthony Nguyen in the pole vault, clearing the bar at 12-11 3/4. And finally, in the long jump, Pizzica edged out teammate Andy Bardine with a winning jump of 22-5 3/4.

In the 800, Kevin Russell crossed the finish line first with a winning time of 2 minutes, 1.13 seconds, just ahead of Ryan Figueroa of Santiago Canyon (2:02.99).

In the 110 hurdles, it was a head-to-head showdown between OCC's Bardine and GWC's Christian Potter and in the end, Bardine took the top spot with a time of 16.18, edging out Potter's 16.34.

In the 1,500, Coast took four of the top five spots, led by Weston Hall's winning time of 4:12.48. Bonthius (4:14.23) finished second, Dillon Scott (4:24.81) placed fourth and Hinesly (4:25.88) placed fifth.

It was a solid 1-2 performance in the hammer throw as Austin Pollock (152-9 1/4) edged out teammate Brian Taylor (152-5 3/4) to win the event.

OCC will return to action March 1-2 at the Long Beach State Invitational.