Track & Field: LB Poly’s boys take Invitational relay

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

After watching the girls team rack up wins all day, the Long Beach Poly boys 4x400 relay members took the track for the final race of Saturday’s Arcadia Invitational determined to earn some hardware.

The Jackrabbits’ foursome did just that, winning the Invitational race thanks to a blazing anchor leg by Richard Smith, who is headed for Arizona State to play wide receiver for the Sun Devils’ football team. He and teammates Veth Seng, Austin Gunter and Colin Monaco clocked 3:18.55 to power past Bellflower St. John Bosco (3:20.40) and Los Angeles Dorsey (3:20.43).

‘They didn’t put us in the best lane to start because I guess there were some good teams in there, but I knew Richard could pull it out at the end,’ said Gunter, the only junior of the four (the three others are seniors). ‘We saw how good our girls were doing and we had to come away with something too.’

Vista Murrieta won the boys Invitational distance medley in 10:08.52, followed by Las Vegas Centennial (10:08.96) and Los Angeles Loyola (10:10.53), which had set a new meet record in the 4x1600 Friday night despite Andrew Bland, Charlie Marquart and Josh Lewis all having to borrow teammates’ cleats after their backpacks were stolen during the pre-race warmups.

Host Arcadia won the boys 4x400 seeded race in 3:20.51. Gardena Serra’s girls won the Invitational 4x400 relay and Redondo took the girls 4x400 seeded event in 3:52.61.

-- Steve Galluzzo

Caption: Long Beach Poly’s 4x400 relay team of (L-R) Veth Seng, Austin Gunter, Colin Monaco and Richard Smith with their first-place medals. Credit: Steve Galluzzo / For The Times