Westwood, Calif. - Cal State Fullerton men's and women's track and field competed at the Bob Larsen Distance Carnival on Friday night on the campus of UCLA. In a night full of personal bests, Trinity Ruelas' was the highlight as she broke the school record in the women's 5,000-meter race.
Ruelas posted a time of 16:32.56 to break the previous record of 16:33.72 set by Carolyn Ellis in 2010. She finished in third place overall while Alyssa Block's personal-best time of 16:50.59 was good for fifth place overall.
"It was a good night overall," head coach John Elders said. "Trinity had a school record in the 5K and then in the same race Alyssa (Block) had a personal best by about nine seconds and Lucina had a PR as well. Trinity's time is definitely in the hunt to qualify for the NCAA West Preliminaries, historically that time has been close so we'll see. But it was a great race for all three of them."
For the men's 5K, Jake Smith posted a personal-best time of 14:33.77 to take third place as well.
Gabrielle De La Rosa took fifth place in the women's 3K steeplechase with a time of 10:50.53 while Sarah Hollis was eighth at 11:06.41. On the men's side, Jorge Sanchez clocked a personal-best time of 9:05.27 to take third place.
"Gabby improved on her time from a year ago in the same race by about six seconds and she said she felt great so tonight was a good night for her," Elders said. "Jorge said he felt excellent as well so that's a good thing. It was a great race and really close at the end."
"Overall, we made some good progress tonight and we know that there is still a lot left in the tank for these student-athletes," Elders said.'
The Titans host the Titan Team Challenge on Saturday with field events beginning at 9:15 a.m. and track events starting at noon.
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