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Moorpark's Pacifico wins shot put title
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More from SportsJimmie Pacifico earned a state championship in the men's shot put as the Moorpark College men's track and field team finished fifth at the California Community College championships at Cerritos College on Saturday.
Moorpark scored 45 points as a team to finish in the top five for the sixth straight season.
"It's always exciting to be a part of a team with that type of success," said first-year coach Keith Kephart.
Riverside won the state title with 112 points, followed by Sacramento (67), Fresno (52) and Long Beach (47). Host Cerritos won the women's meet with 101 points.
Pacifico, a freshman from Vandalia, Ohio, threw the shot an even 57 feet on his final attempt of the preliminaries and it stood up for the Raiders' lone individual state title.
"I wanted to pop out a big throw, which I was doing all week in practice," said Pacifico, who had been breaking 60 feet during practice. "I just think I tried too hard to go for that."
Moorpark earned four of the top eight places in the men's hammer throw. Guat Vallejo-Howard finished third with a throw of 53.86 meters. Pacifico, Brandon Dutton and Colin Dunbar followed in fourth, fifth and eighth place, respectively.
"Overall, it was a real hot day," said Pacifico. "We were trying to adapt to that."
Despite an injury, Kyle Elsea finished ninth in the decathlon with 5,251 points.
Ventura's Brandon Johnson improved on his previous personal best by nine seconds to finish third in the steeplechase (9:40.24). Oxnard's Francisco Ambriz followed in fifth with a school-record time of 9:46.57.
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