Event: Johnny Mathis Invitational
Where: Cox Stadium – San Francisco, Calif.
When: Saturday, all-day
Who to watch: Anikia Jackson is coming off a third place finish in the top group of the heptathlon at the UC Multi Meet last week.
The Bakersfield, Calif. native won the long jump and took second in the javelin at UC Berkley last week. The senior will look to see if she can repeat those successes in the invitational this weekend.
Did you know? Johnny Mathis himself was a great athlete in track and field. In 1954, Mathis enrolled at San Francisco State University on a scholarship, and to this day remains a strong supporter of the Gator track program.
Preview: The UC Davis track squads will again face the fastest runners in the region as they travel to San Francisco to compete in the Johnny Mathis Invitational.
The Aggies look to ride positive momentum, as they had key victories at the Cal-Neva Championships and the Stanford invitational.
The long distance runners are fresh off great performances in Stanford over break, capped by Kaitlin Gregg’s performance in the 10,000-meter event. She shaved off more than a minute on her previous personal best to end with a time of 34:01.20.
“On such long distance events, you want to make sure it all goes well,” said coach Deanne Vochatzer. “They made great use of the opportunity to succeed and they were hitting on all cylinders. That was outstanding.”
While the Aggies look to begin the middle portion of their season with great performances, they will also use this event to give other runners new opportunities to succeed. Due to their physically intense workload last week, different athletes will get an opportunity to showcase their talents in different events.
“We want to get all the kids experienced, not just our big guns,” said coach Jon Vochatzer. “We are going to test some different areas. We hope to be surprised and amazed at how they perform.”
Deanne believes that the team will not disappoint.
“We’re taking a pretty good squad this week,” Deanne said. “It should be a pretty good meet.”
– Matt Wang
