Cerritos College sophomore track and field athlete Andrew Fowler (Los Alamitos HS) used a strong second day at the Southern California Decathlon Championships to finish in fifth place. Fowler, who finished with 5560 points, also qualified for the CCCAA State Championships, which will take place at Bakersfield College on May 18-19. Sophomore Ike Agubata (King-Drew HS), who sat in second place after the first day, slipped all the way down to seventh place with 5469 points. He missed out on finishing in the top six, and qualifying for the state championships, by 66 points.
There's an outside chance that Agubata could qualify for the state championships. He has met the A Standard point total of 5374 points, and there are currently only fourth decathletes from Northern California that have registered that many points. Agubata will know after the Northern California Decathlon Championships, which will take place April 17-18 if any others accrue that many points.
Fowler made his big move in two of the final three events. Sitting in 11th place after the first day, Fowler performed well in his specialty, the pole vault, and cleared 14' 1 1/4" to earn 702 points, which was the fourth best result of the 15 competitors. He then finished the day with a 1500 meters time of 4:39.47, which garnered him 684 points, also the fourth best of the day. As for Agubata, he wasn't able to match his performance from the first five events on Tuesday. His pole vault of 9' 10" earned him only 357 points and he ran out of gas in the 1500 meters, recording a time of 5:33.19, which allowed Alixander Morse of Orange Coast College, Fowler and Tyler Lufkin of Riverside City College to catapult ahead of him and knock Agubata out of the top six.
The Falcons other entry, sophomore Chris Oviedo (Warren HS), came in 15th place with 3659 points.
Photos by Daryl Peterson