NCAA indoor championships recap

Last Friday and Saturday, Camryn Rogers and Josh Johnson represented Cal at the ​​NCAA indoor track and field championships at the Birmingham Crossplex in Alabama. The two members of the throwing squad were Cal’s only athletes to qualify for the meet.

On her final attempt in the women’s weight throw on Friday, Rogers broke her own record for the second time that day to place third overall. Her final mark of 24.06m not only is a new school record, but it was good for third place in the nation and ninth on the NCAA’s all-time list. 

Rogers now holds the Canadian national record, formerly held by Olympian Sultana Frizell, and the all-time Pac-12 record, formerly held by UCLA’s Alyssa Wilson.

Come Saturday morning, it was Johnson’s turn to enter the throwing ring. While his shot put throw of 18.86m wasn’t a personal record, it was good enough for 13th overall and Second Team All-American status. 

While Johnson might have fallen short, the outdoor season will offer him plenty of opportunities to throw far. His mark of 19.88m is the second best in Cal outdoor shot put history, and it’s likely he could climb the ranks.

With the NCAA indoor championships behind them, Rogers’ strongest event — the one that took her to the Tokyo Olympics — is the hammer throw. It seems likely that Rogers could finish the outdoor season with her third straight NCAA hammer throw title. While Rogers walked away from the indoor season with a barrage of accolades, her best throws might still be ahead of her.

Cardinal Classic Preview

This weekend, the Bears will get to ease their way into the outdoor season at the Cardinal Classic in — you guessed it — Palo Alto, California. Against the likes of Stanford, San Jose State and the Academy of Art, Cal will have the opportunity to get its outdoor legs under it in a fairly casual setting.

While a matchup with Stanford of all teams would seem likely to bring out maximum ferocity for the blue and gold, that intensity can be reserved for April 30, when the Bears will go head to head with the Cardinal in the Big Meet.

This time around, neither Cal nor Stanford will be at full strength. Notably absent from any throwing event entry lists are the Bears’ Rogers and Johnson, while distance-running sensations Ky Robinson, Charles Hicks and Cole Sprout aren’t present on the entry lists for any races.

Robinson is coming off a second-place finish in the 5000m at the NCAA indoor championships, a race that also saw Sprout finish fifth. In claiming the silver for his team, Robinson went under the event’s previous meet record. 

Despite Robinson’s scintillating time of 13:20, he was just outdone by Northern Arizona University’s Abdihamid Nur. Hicks, meanwhile, finished third in a very tactical 3000m race, while Sprout finished eighth in his second event of the meet.

With each team’s NCAA indoor championships participants on the sidelines for this meet, the Cardinal Classic is but a teaser for the Big Meet later in the outdoor track season. With that being said, it will serve as a springboard for the Bears as they make their foray back into the world of outdoor track.