Results

TACOMA, Wash. — Grady Lemma and Keola Sanchez both blazed personal best times on the track as the Pacific Lutheran University men's track & field squad opened up the outdoor season on Saturday at the Ed Boitano Invitational hosted by crosstown rival University of Puget Sound.

"It was a solid day all around," said Head Coach Trey Henderson.

"Seeing Grady and Keola continue their indoor form to the start of outdoors was great to see and Owen Ladinig had a phenomenal race in the 10K."

Lemma crushed the field in the 110-meter hurdles on Saturday, winning the event by almost a second in a personal best time of 15.13 seconds. The Walla Walla, Washington native added a runner-up finish in the 400-meter hurdles later in the day with a time of 57.68.

Sanchez was the top Division III finisher in the 100-meter dash, sprinting across the finish in a PR time of 10.80 to place second overall while Kellen Meade was fourth overall with a time of 11.11. Both Sanchez and Meade helped the Lutes' 4x100-meter relay team place second overall in 43.37.

Owen Ladinig headlined the meet for the distance runners, finishing fourth overall and first among D3 competitors in a personal best effort of 30:48.51 in the 10,000-meters on Friday.

In the throws, George Sonko was second overall in the discus with a toss of 126 feet, 11 inches and was eighth in the shot put with a heave of 38' 3 1/2". Micah Ragaza-Bourassa was seventh in the hammer throw with a mark of 119' 5" while Darius Chaffin was sixth in both the javelin (164' 8") and 110-meter hurdles (17.20).

Cooper Claxton finished third in the triple jump with a leap of 40' 10 1/4" while in the long jump, Tyger Willingham was eighth with a jump of 20' 5 3/4".

Dylan Jones soared over 13' 11 3/4" to finish tied for fourth in the pole vault with Blake Leahy clearing 13' 5 3/4" to tie for seventh. Bridger Hanis was sixth in the high jump, clearing 5' 8 1/2".  

PLU finished third overall among a field of 16 teams, scoring 78 points and edging the host Loggers by three points. Whitworth University sat atop the standings with 149 points followed by Division II Western Washington University (84).

"There's still a ton of growth ahead of us and we need to be patient and disciplined to hit our potential as a team and today was a solid first step towards that."

The Lutes stay local for the foreseeable future, hosting the PLU Invitational next weekend starting on Friday and the PLU Open the following week.