The Sunnyvale Sun

Sports

Tsai wins CCS discus title, state berth

Homestead senior throws his best yet

By MIKE BARNHART

Third place was all Homestead senior William Tsai needed to accomplish at the Central Coast Section track and field championships to reach the CIF State Meet. But the discus thrower extraordinaire accomplished much more than that last Friday night at San José City College.

Tsai's toss of 183-7 was his best effort ever, and it easily outdistanced the rest of the eight-man field for the CCS discus championship. Archbishop Mitty sophomore Drew Gordon's second-place heave of 167-3 fell more than 16 feet short of Tsai's triumphant toss. Tsai just missed qualifying in the shot put, settling for fourth place at 54-0.

In addition to earning a return trip to the state meet with a mark about 4 feet better than his previous personal record, Tsai installed himself as a medal contender at the event, June 2-3 at Cerritos College in Norwalk. His impressive CCS-winning mark was the sixth-best discus throw in California this season and a huge improvement over his CCS (157-6) and state (149-3) marks of a year ago.

Other local athletes making the trek south will be first-time state meet participants Travis Scibetta of Cupertino and Maria Nelson and Julia Co of Monta Vista.

Scibetta, who had reached the CCS finals in both horizontal jumps, earned a state bid in the triple jump. After placing sixth in the long jump with a personal best of 22-1, Scibetta took third in the triple jump by bounding 45-04.

Nelson earned berths in two girls events by placing third in both short sprints. For the third week in a row, Nelson improved her time in both races, posting 12.07 in the 100 meters and 25.00 in the 200. Junior teammate Co placed third in the long jump with a running leap of 18-3.