Petrucci Easily Wins the Discus

Nick Petrucci improved his career best to 217 feet 8 inches to win the men’s discus in the Mid-Summer Games at Mt. San Antonio College on Sunday.

But the former All-American at Northern Arizona will have to wait another month before learning whether he’ll represent the United States in the world track and field championships Aug. 23-31 at Paris.

Petrucci finished fifth in the U.S. track and field championships at Stanford last month, but he still could nab one of the three spots on the U.S. team for Paris because two of the men who finished ahead of him at nationals have yet to meet the “A” qualifying standard of 211-11 for the world championships.

Another, Adam Setliff, has met the “A” standard, but nagging injuries might prevent him from competing at Paris.

So if Doug Reynolds and Josh Ralston, the third- and fourth-place finishers at nationals, fail to meet the standard by Aug. 13, Petrucci will be on the U.S. team for the world championships.

With that in mind, Petrucci came to Mt. SAC looking to work on some technical aspects of his throwing before heading overseas to compete in a meet in Algeria and several meets in Europe.

“It’s definitely easier to be relaxed in a meet like this,” Petrucci said. “You get a chance to work on some of the things you’ve been doing in practice without the hype of a big competition.”

Petrucci, ranked 10th in the nation last year, threw 217-8 on his first throw. But he also could have won the competition with his fourth-round effort of 213-0 and his second-round effort of 209-7.

Casey Malone, who finished ninth in the USATF championships, finished second at 206-1 and Brown finished third at 202-8.

Dominique Arnold won the “invitational” heat of the men’s 110-meter high hurdles in a season-best 13.35 seconds after running 13.56 in another race about an hour earlier.

Ja’Warren Hooker ran a 43.8-second leg on a men’s 1,600 relay team that finished first in 3:04.54 and Dawn Ellerbe won the women’s hammer throw with a toss of 221-6.