Pepperdine track and field runners broke three school records and established six personal best times Saturday and Sunday at the Cal/Nevada Invitational in Westwood Calif. The Waves wrapped up the tournament with a 21st-place finish in a field of over 30 teams including UCLA UNLV and San Diego State.
Seven runners were chosen by Head Coach Robert Radnoti to represent Pepperdine: sophomore sprinters Amanda Ajdari and Bridgette Walker senior distance runner Brianna Carroll sophomore mid-distance runners Eric Magana and Conrad Wozniak and freshmen distance runners James Leckie and Lauren Lodge.
All the runners competed in their primary events with the exception of Carroll who ran in her first 10000-meter race of the season. Carroll said her goal was to break the school record of 38:05:07 set in 2008 by then-junior Courtney Young. Carroll reached her target notching a time of 37:36.08 to finish seventh overall.
“It’s a very difficult race not just physically but mentally … she was very excited and obviously ran very well said Radnoti of Carroll.
Aside from Carroll, Lodge also performed well and came in seventh in a field of 18 runners in the 1500-meter run. She was the second-fastest freshman in the field with a seed time of 4:40.83. She took down this record with a new time of 4:39.68.
Walker set a new school record in the 400-meter run with a time of 58.12, more than a second faster than her previous time, which she recorded Saturday, March 21 at the Trojan Invitational.
Despite these record breaking performances, the team’s combined effort was not good enough to crack the top 15.
We don’t necessarily have the depth to compete with schools like UCLA Radnoti said. We had a smaller number of runners than most other schools.”
This is due to the fact that the entire Pepperdine track team is smaller than that of most other schools they compete against.
Although sophomore Conrad Wozniak finished the 5K with a lifetime best mark of 15:04.21 the rest of the men’s team did not perform quite as well.
Magana and Leckie both competed in the 800-meter run but could not match the performance of the women.
In the 800-meter preliminaries on Saturday Magna and Leckie placed 26th and 34th respectively out of 36 runners. Although Leckie has posted three of the team’s fastest times this season including a personal record of 1:58:03 he was unable to improve this time and settled with a time of 2:01.59. Magana hit the tape at 1:57.86 in the prelims but did not do well enough to make it to the finals.
Overall this season has not been a successful one for men’s track but Magana said he sees the team’s struggles as an incentive to work harder and run faster.
“It’s not frustrating at all it is actually something I use as motivation Magana said. I understand that Pepperdine is the underdog which is why in every race I do my best and strive to beat as many runners from the top schools as possible. Racing against good teams will only make you better.” The season will continue on Saturday for Pepperdine track and field when the team travels east to participate in the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational.