Former county track and field standouts will be on display Monday at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

In the men’s pole vault preliminaries, former Mater Dei star and current UCLA vaulter Michael Woepse will compete in flight two of the competition.

Woepse, who was named the Register’s 2009 Track and Field Athlete of the Year as a junior, is the county’s all-time leader in the pole vault. The following spring,  he cleared a county-record 17 feet, six inches in a dual meet against Orange Lutheran on March 19, 2010.

That height is the second best in the history of the CIF Southern Section and the fourth best in state history.
Joining Woepse in flight two of the preliminaries will be former Los Alamitos and UCLA vaulter Dustin Deleo.

Deleo is the Griffins’ all-time record holder in the pole vault with a high school best clearance of 16-2 in a winning effort at the 2004 Orange County Championships.

The preliminaries are scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. The top 12 vaulters will advance to the finals, scheduled for Thursday.

In the Men’s 5000 preliminaries, former El Toro star Brandon Bethke will toe the starting line in heat 2.

Bethke was the Register’s 2003 and 2004 Cross Country Athlete of the Year. He graduated with the school’s top 1600 time, clocking a 4:09.53 at the CIF-SS Division 2 Finals in 2004 and is now No. 2 in Chargers history behind Toby Villalva’s 4:09.42 at the 2009 CIF State Track and Field Championships.

Bethke competed collegiately at the University of Wisconsin for two seasons before finishing his collegiate career at Arizona State.

The preliminaries are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. The top 16 runners will advance to the finals which are schedule for Thursday.

Also, former Santa Margarita runner Ryan Martin will compete in the finals of the 800. That race is scheduled to begin at 7:47 p.m.

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