Warrior Weekly: Stanislaus State’s spring athletes are off to a fast start

Three Stanislaus State Track & Field Warriors are leading all of NCAA Division II in their respective events after two weeks of outdoor track competition.

One of those top marks belongs to returning All-American Eric Bejaran (Turlock/Pitman HS). He is atop of the leaderboard in the men’s hammer throw at 206 feet, 3 inches (62.86 meters) in the opening meet at Fresno Pacific on Feb. 22.

That mark is an NCAA provisional qualifier and it’s a better number than what he threw at the NCAA Championships last May, when he finished sixth to earn a spot on the All-American podium.

Bejaran leads the second-best mark in Division II by 24 feet.

In the men’s 5,000-meter run, the fastest time recorded this season was by senior Alexies Reynoso (San Jose/Modesto Junior College), who ran 14:37.84 on Saturday on the home track at the Kim Duyst Invitational.

That was Reynoso’s first sub-15 in a collegiate meet. He is ahead of the second fastest time by nearly 14 seconds (Ben Tabdor, Lee University).

On the women’s side, Petrice Beattie (Vallejo/Diablo Valley College) is tops in the high jump. She cleared 5-6 1/2 (1.69 meters) on Saturday for a Division II championships provisional qualifying mark.

Beattie was named the California Collegiate Athletic Association Field Athlete of the Week on Tuesday.

Wheatcroft extends streak: Preseason All-American pitcher Chase Wheatcroft has made history — at least we are pretty sure he has.

Wheatcroft has extended his scoreless innings pitched streak to 27 1/3 innings after throwing a complete-game three-hit shutout last Friday in the Warriors’ 1-0 win over Cal State East Bay.

The Stan State record book for baseball does not include this category for pitchers, however, the NCAA Division II record book does.

The NCAA list includes 14 pitchers with at least 31 consecutive scoreless innings pitched. It’s unlikely that a Warrior has such a streak between 27 and 31 innings; therefore, Wheatcroft’s accomplishment is declared a Stan State record.

Wheatcroft would most certainly be on the NCAA list with four more scoreless innings this week at Cal State Monterey Bay.

The Division II record is 55 innings (Jason Hoppe, Minnesota State), set in 2013. The CCAA record is 31 by Cal State Dominguez Hills’ George Stablein set in 1977.

On Tuesday, CCAA named Wheatcroft pitcher of the week for the second time this season. He’s likely to pick up a second West Region Pitcher of the Week award.

Softball sweeps CCAA awards: The CCAA named Kyndra Marzorini pitcher of the week and Alexus Martinez player of the week after the Warriors swept Cal State East Bay.

Stan State outscored the Pioneers 18-2 with two shutouts in the series that was supposed to be played in Hayward. The games shifted to Turlock after the softball field at CSUEB were declared unplayable.

Marzorini recorded two wins with two complete games. The freshman pitcher threw a total of 14 innings and allowed just one earned run.

Martinez batted .545 and went 6 for 11, scored six times and drove in a run in the series. She drew three walks for an on-base percentage of .643. She also stole two bases.

An honorable mention should go to Lia Tom, who hit a walk-off double in a 1-0 win Thursday night and belted a grand slam on Friday to contribute to the 7-1 finale victory.