Bruin Bites: UCLA's Olympic Sports Athletes Competing in Summer Events

Even though there are no team meets for UCLA in July, the Bruins are well represented on the national stage this week.

--- In track and field, four Bruins competed at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene. Braheme Days, who will be a sophomore next year, won the bronze medal in the shot put, with a mark of 20.01 m,  finishing on the medal stand with the gold medal winner from the Poland and the silver medalist from the Netherlands. Incoming freshman Amir Patterson had the second best US result in the shot put, finishing 7th overall with a mark of 19.20 m.

Richard Ho, who will be a sophomore next year, competed for Taiwan in the 10,000 meters, and finished in 18th with a time of 30:48.86, four spots behind the best American finish. And incoming freshman Misana Viltz competed in the 110 hurdles. Viltz finished with a time of 14.02 in his semifinal heat, .6 seconds off his personal best, and failed to qualify for the finals. Here is a link to the meet website.

The performance of these four Bruins on the international stage will hopefully bode well for the future of UCLA track, which has been in a steady downtrend since Doughnut took over the reins at Morgan Center.

--- Turning to golf, the Pacific Coast Amateur men's Golf Championship was held in Scottsdale. And Lorens Chan, who will be a junior this year, finished tied for 2nd at -11. The highlight for Chan was a 2nd day total of 63, -7, which vaulted him into first place after the 2nd round. He finished every round at par or better. Chan was an honorable mention All-American and 2nd team all-conference golfer last year. His future looks bright. Here is a link to the championship summary on the tournament website. If you would like to read more about Chan's performance on the UCLA website, all you need to do is go to the Women's golf page here. It is not like we ask for much for Morgan Center. But getting the sex right for the 2nd best golfer at a national event would not seem to be too difficult. But then again, we are talking about Doughnut and his minions.

--- And on the baseball diamond, Ty Moore, who will be a junior next year, was named to the Cape Cod League all-star game roster. The Cape Cod league is the premier summer collegiate league in the country, so this is quite an honor.

UCLA's Friday ace, James Kaprielian, continues to pitch well for the Team USA National Collegiate Team. He was on the short end in his most recent start, in Cuba, but pitched well, allowing two earned runs on four hits in 5.1 innings. The game report is here.

That's it for this recap of UCLA Bruins competing last week on the national and international scene. Please feel free to chime in with other news of Bruins on the regional, national, and international level. And let's hope that somebody at Morgan Center can figure out which athletes belong to which teams. You deserve better, Loren. And we all deserve better than we are getting from Doughnut.

Go Bruins !!