Caltech Senior Morgan Hill Places Third, Earns All-Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

Senior Morgan Hill continued a truly amazing senior year as he earned All-SCIAC honors with a third-place finish in the hammer throw to kick off a successful SCIAC Championships for Caltech track & field on Friday and Saturday.

Having broken an 81-year-old program record at his last meet just two weeks prior, Hill further solidified his status with an all-time clutch performance, overcoming three fouls and a disappointing first legal throw to vault from eighth place after the qualifying round straight into third in the finals. The senior also recorded a personal best in the shot put with aan effort of 34’2.25″.

“Morgan’s improvements have been impressive, but his accomplishments are an extension of his evolved mindset this year,” Head Coach Ben Raphelson said. “He has taken a positive, resilient mindset into nearly every practice and competition this year. On Friday, he had to navigate a back-and-forth competition to produce when it mattered most. That, even more than the podium finish, is what stands out for me.”

Junior Lucy Chen was a perfect three-for-three in recording personal-bests in each of her events. After cracking her second career program top-10 list two weeks prior, she moved up three spots in the long jump to tie for the seventh-best mark in program history at 14’11.5″ inches while also adding two inches in the triple jump (32’2″) and shaving .07 in the 100-meter dash (14.56).

Senior Edward Garza recorded the fastest 100m time by a Caltech sprinter since 2011, beating even his significantly wind-aided personal best with an 11.32, which placed him 13th and just .19 behind the qualifying time for finals. He also placed 12th in the 200m with a 22.87, which blew away his previous non-wind-aided time by .57 and came within half a second of qualifying for finals. Garza also ran a leg on the 4×100 relay, which included senior Kevin Yei , sophomore Alex Bourzutschky  and freshman Ben Calvin, who combined to drop almost a full second to post the best Caltech time since 2013 (46.33).

The distance core of sophomore Michael Hashe and freshmen Rohan Choudhury and Joey Hong all performed well in a chaotic 59-man race, with Choudhury placing higher than his seed with a slight time drop while Hashe chopped off more than 45 seconds (17:53.79) and Hong trimmed almost nine (16:52.54). In the 1500m, junior Lilly Luo cut off 14 seconds to clock a 5:35.37 while freshman Rohan Doshi came within three seconds of qualifying for finals with a three-second drop (4:08.48) and sophomores Gene Vaughan and Chris Haack shaved 10 seconds (4:40.83) and four second (4:41.51), respectively.

All three 400m runners trimmed significant time as well, with Bourzutschky also bettering his career-best time as a rookie with a 53.31. Yei crossed in 56.79 and junior Teddy Hu ran a career-best 62.23.

Other highlights included senior Anup Kishore competing in the pole vault, triple jump and javelin in his final SCIAC Championships, as well as freshman Michelle Marasigan returning to action with a competitive effort as she continues to recover from injury and freshman Muskaan Goyal recording her second-best discus throw of her rookie season on the big stage.

“The SCIAC is a competitive, deep conference,” Raphelson said. “It pushes our scholar-athletes to strive for more and to be at their absolute best when it matters most. I feel our team fed off that and really thrived this past weekend. It was a positive group that was very focused on delivering their best efforts and supporting their teammates to do the same.”

Raphelson and a select few Beavers who have qualified will compete at the Occidental Last Chance Invitational on Saturday, May 7, with a handful also continuing to train toward the season-ending Redlands Last Chance Invitational on Wednesday-Thursday, May 18-19.