The Cal State L.A. Twilight Open track meet, a meet that Vandal athletes were competing in, was cancelled Thursday afternoon after a bomb threat to the Cal State Los Angeles campus. A telephone call warned that a bomb would go off in two hours prompting the immediate campus-wide evacuation. The meet was one of many that the Vandals were scheduled to compete in this weekend.
Steven Devine | Argonaut
Al Taylor tosses the hammer at the Dan O’Brien Track and Field Complex Thursday afternoon. The Vandals finished one event at the Cal State L.A. Twilight Open track meet before the meet was cancelled due to a bomb threat on the campus. Before the threat, Kyle Rothwell and Kristine Leonard threw career-best marks in the hammer throw event.
“The only event that the Vandals got to compete in was the men’s hammer and the women’s hammer,” Idaho coach Julie Taylor said. “They had a bomb threat and cancelled the meet.”
The Los Angeles Police Department promptly conducted a search of the campus but no bombs were found and nobody was hurt.
Officials from the university opted to suspend classes and immediately evacuate the 20,000-student campus. The caller also claimed to have planted a bomb on the U.C. Berkeley campus, which wasn’t evacuated.
Before the chaos, the Vandal throwers took advantage of their chance to compete. Senior Kristine Leonard and junior Kyle Rothwell both threw career best marks in the hammer throw. Rothwell hit the 200-foot mark for the first time in his career — a mark that should easily qualify for the first round of NCAA regional competition.
“That’s actually in the top 10 list for Idaho,” Taylor said of Rothwell’s throw. “That was very good, he had a great day.”
“It went pretty well. I was pretty happy with everything except we just didn’t get to compete as much as we wanted to,” Rothwell said.
The Vandals also began competition in the prestigious Mt. SAC Relays on Thursday in Walnut, Calif. The meet is set to conclude on Saturday.
Idaho is up against the best in the country in the 55th edition of the famous Mt. SAC Relays as the field includes Olympic medalists Ashton Eaton, Allyson Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Lashinda Demus and Jason Richardson.
Senior Anna Kalbrener finished as Idaho’s highest finisher in the loaded field of the women’s 1500-meter run. Her time of 4 minutes, 35.19 second landed her 95th in the 171-competitor field.
On the men’s side, senior Jeff Osborn faced similarly tough competition to finish 118th in 3:59.99.
Idaho freshmen Santos Vargas and Halie Raudenbush experienced their first big-time outdoor meet experience in the open-C section of the steeplechase. Vargas finished in 17th in the men’s 3000-meter steeplechase in 9:40.08 while Raudenbush finished in 15th in the women’s 3000-meter event in 11:04.49.
With two days down, more Vandals are set to compete throughout the weekend. In addition to days two and three of the Mt. SAC Relays, Idaho is set to compete in the Long Beach Invitational Friday at Norwalk, Calif., while also sending a squad to the Cougar Invitational on Saturday at Pullman.
“Within (this) area, there’s about five different meets we can actually compete at which is a lot of fun,” Taylor said of the Southern California meets. “We are going to try to capitalize on the opportunity to get the weather and have multiple races and multiple chances to do throws and jumps and everything. We’ll see a lot more people compete this weekend.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]