Herrera re-sets school record at Colorado

For The Madera Tribune

Former Madera Coyotes girls water polo players Jessica Diaz, left, and Emily Lopez-Ibarra met in the collegiate pool last week. Diaz’s Cal Lutheran Knights got the better of Lopez-Ibarra’s Fresno Pacific Sunbirds.

---

For the third time, former Madera South Stallions’ standout Eduardo Herrera set the Colorado University school record in the mile at the Pac-12 Indoor Invitational last month.

Herrera won the race in a time of 3:57.16 and now owns more school records than any Colorado University male with the outdoor 1,500-meter record, the indoor 3,000 and mile record.

With his school-record time in the 3,000 meters, Herrera qualified for the NCAA Indoor Tack and Field Championships later this week in Birmingham, Alabama.

Herrera is the lone male Colorado representative at the NCAA’s. He is ranked fifth in the country with a school-record time of 7:42.67. This is Herrera’s first trip to the indoor championships. He was a second team All-American in 2019 in the outdoor 1,500-meter run.

Madera’s Linda Perez earned All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation honors at the MPSF Track and Field Championships in Spokane, Washington last month. She placed second in the women’s 5,000 meter run.

Bryson Smith (Madera) placed third in the men’s weight throw with a lifetime best throw of 18.6 meters to earn Mountain West All-Conference selection.

The Fresno Pacific Sunbirds’ women’s water polo team battled with the Cal Lutheran team at the Tina Finali Invitational at the Samuelson Aquatics Center at Cal Lutheran.

The Madera connection in the game was that Cal Lutheran’s Jessica Diaz, Madera’s all-time scorer, battled with Fresno Pacific’s Emily Lopez-Ibarra, also from Madera. Lopez-Ibarra scored a goal in the game while Diaz recorded a steal, but it was Diaz’s Cal Lutheran Knights that came away with a 15-11 victory.