College Roundup: UCI’s Jun fares well at regional

MEN’S GOLF

NCAA Stanford Regional

STANFORD — UC Irvine sophomore Allan Jun used a strong finish to shoot a two-under-par 68 in the first round of the NCAA Stanford Regional Thursday.

Competing as an individual, Jun is in a 10-way tie for seventh place. Sang Yi of LSU and Zachary Blair of BYU are the individual leaders at four-under 66.

Jun shot a one-under 34 on the front nine and after consecutive bogeys on the 12th and 13th holes, he carded three straight birdies on the par-4 15th, par-5 16th, and par-3 17th to shoot 68 on the par-70 Stanford Golf Course that measures 6,727 yards.

San Francisco leads the team competition after a seven-under 273, California is second at 276 and Stanford third at 277.

Action continues with one round each on Friday and Saturday. The low five teams and the low individual not on those teams after the final round will advance to the NCAA Final May 29-June 3 at The Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.

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State Championships

SANTA MARIA — Orange Coast College freshman Marcus Mercado-Kiel finished tied for 11th place in the state after carding a two-round score of 146 at the California Community College Athletic Assn. State Championships, held at the Santa Maria Country Club on Monday.

After firing a one-under-par 71 in the opening round, Mercado-Kiel, a Newport Harbor High product, performed well against the ever-toughening conditions and shot a three-over 75 in the afternoon round.

College of the Desert’s Austin Gray won the state’s individual title after shooting a five-under 139 (69-70), helping the Roadrunners to the team title. Desert and Canyons each finished with a team score of 729 (top-five scores from each team), but the Roadrunners won the title based on the sixth golfer’s score from each team.

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TRACK & FIELD

Southern California Regionals

SAN DIEGO — Orange Coast College will send 10 athletes to compete this weekend at the state meet after they qualified at the Southern California Regional meet, held at San Diego Mesa College on Saturday.

Leading the way will be standout distance runner Barron Maizland, who won the Southern California title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9 minutes, 16.71 seconds, breaking a 29-year school record set by Lalo Terriquez back in 1983. Maizland’s time was 17 seconds better than runner-up Julian Lopez of San Bernardino Valley.

On the women’s side, another SoCal champion was crowned for the Pirates as Meghan Foley topped the field in the 1,500, winning in 4:40.17, edging out Cuesta’s Kasey Urman’s time of 4:41.25.

In addition to qualifying for the 1,500, Foley will also take part in the 800, where she finished fifth in SoCal in 2:19.91.

Another double-winner for the Pirates came on the men’s side as sophomore Patrick Douglas earned a trip to Cerritos College after finishing sixth in both the 1,500 (3:52.97) and 5,000 (15:02.24).

Joining Douglas on the track in the 1,500 is teammate Hugo Gutierrez, who finished second in the event in 3:52.23. He was edged out by Bakersfield’s Chris Schwartz (3:51.69).

Maizland will have familiar company in the 3,000 steeplechase, thanks to Zack Ellis and Jace Hinesly. Both qualified for state after Ellis placed fifth overall (9:36.97) and Hinesly finished sixth (9:38.08).

Grace Adams Handy will take part in the women’s 3,000 steeplechase on Saturday after finishing sixth at SoCals in 11:32.47.

OCC will have participants in both 10,000-meter races, thanks to strong regional performances by Austin Little and Analicia Silva. Little finished the men’s race with a sixth-place time of 32:26.43, while Silva finished the women’s race in fifth in 38:55.81.

Decathlete Andrew Cruikshank was impressive for the Pirates in several events and qualified third in Southern California with a total of 6,064, behind only Tomek Czerwinski of Mt. San Antonio (6,619) and Riverside’s Billy Britt (6,221).