M. Track & Field: Luke Johnson wins SoCal Decathlon championship

Luke Johnson (1st) and Roman Sanson (8th) both made the podium at the SoCal Decathlon Championships

Posted: Apr 02, 2025

With his 6199 total points at the Southern California Decathlon Championships, sophomore Luke Johnson (Paramount HS) finished in first place out of 16 entries. The championships took place over the course of two days at Cerritos College. The Falcons will have 11 team points heading into the Southern California Prelims and Championships, which will be at Saddleback College on May 3 and 10. Next up for the team will be the Triton Invitational at UC San Diego on Friday.

Luke Johnson won the SoCal Decathlon championship Johnson was one of four Falcon competing in the championships, with freshman teammate Roman Sanson (Downey HS) finishing in eighth place, while Jacob Begay (Long Beach Jordan HS) was 12th and an injured Logan Smith (Valencia HS) came in 16th place.

Trailing Riverside City College's Xavier Harvey by 12 points heading into the 1500 meters, Johnson posted a time of 4:49.73, which earned him 620 points, while Harvey only amassed 527 points for his time of 5:05.68. Johnson finished 81 points ahead of Harvey, who settled for second place.

Johnson only recorded the best mark in one of the 10 events, which came in the javelin. His distance of 54.87 meters earned him 661 points, which was far and away better than his closest competition, which came from Josh Mallers of Mt. San Antonio, who earned 530 points in the event. The high jump also earned Johnson 661 points when he cleared 1.84 meters, with overall third place finisher Gunner Perez of El Camino College the only participant to clear a better height.

Earning a solid 726 points for his time of 51.98 in the 400 meters helped Johnson gain points in the final event of the first day. He sat in third place after the first five events with 3185 points and trailed Harvey (3337 points) and Perez (3304 points).

The best event in the championship by Sanson came in the 1500 meters, with his time of 4:44.84 the third best of the group and netted him 650 points, which helped him pull into eighth place overall. Sanson also did well in the pole vault, as he posted the sixth best height at 3.60 meters, which earned him 509 points.